Australian Indie Developer Jake Wilkinson has just launched his first Kickstarter for Space Station Alpha, a game all about building a space station and managing the myriad needs of various squishy alien customers.
What is Space Station Alpha?
Space Station Alpha puts you in the shoes of director and architect of what will hopefully become a bustling centre for commerce, diplomacy, entertainment and/or war. Starting out with little more than a floating shipping container and a single beat up WorkerBot(tm) you’ll have to use your scant resources to map out new decking and bulkheads, construct the bare minimum required for life support before opening your station to travelers.
The challenges will be many, the main resource required to keep your cash filled customers alive is oxygen, which can only be pumped out by energy hungry machines. A realistic airflow system sees oxygen rushing from room to room through open doors or quickly escaping into space through the merest hull breach.
If you can manage to keep your customers alive long enough then you’ll have to deal with their various needs, initially you’ll deal mostly with human pioneers exploring the outer regions of space, thankfully they’ll be happy with little more than a solid meal and some fresh oxygen. As your station becomes more popular though you’ll be dealing with wealthy alien merchants bribing your workers, diplomats expecting special treatment and acid excreting monsters who (accidentally) leave destruction in their wake. You’ll become a ripe target for pirates and mercenaries, as your station grows it also becomes bigger target for the periodic meteor showers that are all too common this time of year.
Why a Kickstarter?
As Space Station Alpha draws close to its alpha testing phase the need for a professional level of art assets grows. SSA is a true indie construction, being made by one poor developer/science teacher in a darkened room, surrounded by empty chocolate wrappers. Although a mighty programmer he may be he is just an okay 3D artist and before SSA is ready for release it will need the input of some decent artists and musicians to add the look and feel that a game like this needs. With a $5,000 target it’s not too ambitious and there are some exciting rewards for backers, as well as the obvious access to the game when released and early alpha access you can get your name in the game and even the opportunity to take part in several video chats with the developer and pitch your own ideas for possible features. One generous backer could even get the chance to design their own alien race (no giant penis aliens allowed unfortunately).
Space Station Alpha launches on Kickstarter along with several other projects based in Australia, celebrating the crowd funding site finally allowing Australian entrepreneurs.
Links:
Space Station Alpha Kickstarter
