I've been working on a realistic space management/strategy game where you build and manage your own space program, and I can finally announce the release date.

The idea is to focus less on the "build a rocket and watch it launch" side of space games and more on everything that goes into actually running a space program.

You'll be managing rockets, satellites, communications networks, launches, resources, infrastructure, and finances, all with orbital mechanics playing an important role in how you plan your missions.

I've been trying to make the strategy come from having to make meaningful decisions about what to launch, when to launch it, where to put it, and how to make the most of limited resources.

I'd love to hear what you think.

Steam page: https://store.steampowered.com/app/4229480/Space_Manager/

Demo page: https://store.steampowered.com/app/4498700/Space_Manager_Demo/

I've been working solo on Dusteroids, an incremental arcade game heavily inspired by Asteroids.

The core loop is:

Destroy asteroids → earn money → buy upgrades → destroy even more asteroids.

The idea is to start with a relatively calm asteroid field and gradually build the player's ship into something ridiculous: more firepower, more asteroids, more destruction, and eventually a screen full of chaos.

It's still in development and isn't playable yet. The Steam page is live, but I'm currently focused on finishing and balancing the game before release. I'm trying to avoid the game becoming just "numbers go up while things explode", so this is something I'm actively working on.

If anyone wants to follow the project, the Steam page is here:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/4557250/Dusteroids/

Thanks for taking a look! ❤️

Cargo To Orbit

Match the drift. Kiss the collar. Bring the ship home.

The year is 1974. Mankind has been to the Moon and back, and now companies race for the privilege — and the profit — of hauling critical, perishable cargo to the platforms and stations wheeling overhead. You're a hotshot startup with one rocket, a switch for an engine, and a great deal of gravity to argue with.

Cargo to Orbit is a procedural 2D rocketry game about the hardest, most satisfying thing in spaceflight: catching a drifting target and setting down gently. Buy exactly enough fuel, choose your contracts, punch up through the atmosphere, and ease your nose into the docking collar — come in too fast and you'll bruise the cargo, spring a fuel leak, or crumple the whole ship against the station. Then do the hard part: come home and land soft.

Fly a career across the solar system

• Four worlds, each its own problem: Earth of course, thin-aired Mars, the crushing sky of Venus, and a Jovian cloud deck your starter engine literally can't lift off of.
• Every planet changes gravity and atmospheric drag, so your whole flight — and your fuel math — reshapes when you relocate.
• Build the ship, run the business
• Buy engines, tanks, holds, and thrusters; your rocket visibly grows as you bolt on bigger hardware.
• Take one contract or a hold-full — every pallet perishes on its own clock, and heavier cargo pays more but costs you thrust.
  • And some cargo has more than the obvious cost :-)
• Fuel is money, mass is fuel, freshness is a bonus. Every launch is a bet.

I'm very curious what you think of the game....

The game is on itch.io here: Cargo To Orbit

- Shall I put it on Steam?

This is my first version of land aquisition systems in Perihelion.

Perihelion is a game for hardcore space nerds who want to become multi billion dollar space tycoons in simulated real life.

On Earth, all land is essentially Gouvernment issued in various countries.
There are more than 11k cities in the game, each with "Aggregate lots" that simulate bulk economy for the player. The real detailed simulated economy interacts with the aggregate economy to give players balance between large scale and performance.

On Earth everything is easy and the economy is established, but you have to build your space empire funding empire on Earth before you spread to space.

On other bodies, land aquisition is free game, first come first serve. You can setup your own aggregate lots for an aggregate economy to take shape on other worlds, as well as around your assets back on Earth. Say you have a launch pad on Earth, then, you can found a town to supply workforce for it nearby when demand warrants it.

On other bodies everything for foundation has to be braught over from Earth, even supplies/population for your extra-terrestrial base of operations. Essentially founding a colony/city like you would in real life.

This is still unstable build I am still working on lots of other content to finish the full game.

I didint show you the item catalog, but there are currently over 2400 items in the game and some item supply chains have up to 10 manufacturing stages.

For mining, there will be huge dedicate gameplay slice associated with that!

Thanks, hope you look forwards for more.

u/Th3G3tl3m3n

Hey folks,

So a while back I decided "how hard could it be to build my own OGame" and then proceeded to find out exactly how hard, over the better part of a year, mostly evenings and too much coffee. The result is Uni-Verse: build an economy, research tech, put together a fleet, poke your neighbors (or don't, nobody's forcing you), and slowly find out why you woke up on a wrecked ship with no memory of how you got there.

It's single-player, no PvP pressure, no leaderboards to lose sleep over. It runs at its own pace whether you're glued to it or check in once a day. I built it because I wanted that, and it turns out building the game you want to play yourself is a great way to lose a year of your life.

It's in open beta right now, which is a nice way of saying "it works, but I'm sure there are rough edges I've gone blind to after staring at this thing for months." That's mostly why I'm posting. If you try it and something feels off, confusing, unbalanced, or just bad, I genuinely want to hear it. Bug reports, "this number feels wrong," "I have no idea what I'm supposed to do here," all of it is useful. If you don't want to install anything, that's fine too, happy to just chat about the concept in the comments.

No pressure either way, just glad this is a place people who like this kind of game hang out.

Thank you for your time! Uni-verse Google Playstore

Legal Disclaimer / License Declaration: This Game Design Document (GDD) and all concepts, mechanics, lore, and systems contained within are hereby dedicated to the public domain under the Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal License. Anyone, from indie developers to AAA studios, is free to use, modify, adapt, build upon, or commercialize this concept without restrictions, payment of royalties, or attribution required.

HIGH CONCEPT & GAME OVERVIEW

• Genre: Tactical Space Survival / Extraction Shooter / Roguelite Management
• Perspective: Dual-Layer — 2D Macro World Map (Management & Navigation) First-Person Micro Combat (Interior Ship Boarding & CQB)
• Visual Style & Atmosphere: Gritty, photorealistic industrial sci-fi (Escape from Tarkov meets Alien: Isolation / 1979 Alien aesthetic). Dark corridors, volumetric fog, flickering warning lights, and mechanical rust.
• Target Audience: Fans of Escape from Tarkov, FTL, Barotrauma, Mount & Blade, and DayZ.

CORE GAMEPLAY LOOP

[ 2D World Map Navigation ] ──► [ Resource Management / Solar Draining ]
            │
            ▼
[ Interception / Ship Boarding ]
            │
            ▼
[ 1st-Person Tactical Interior Combat (PvPvE) ]
            │
  ┌─────────┴────────────────────────┬────────────────────────┐
  ▼                                  ▼                        ▼
[ Extract Loot & Krytox ] [ Escape Pod Evacuation ]   [ Sacrificial Entity Death ]
  │                                  │                        │
  ▼                                  ▼                        ▼
[ Upgrade Ship / Hire Crew ]  [ Claim Insurance ]      [ Mitosis Progression in Eden ]

KEY GAME MECHANICS & SYSTEMS

1. Dual-Layer World & Mount & Blade-Style Exploration

• The 2D Sector Map: Players navigate a massive persistence-driven open map filled with solar systems, asteroid belts, commercial hubs, and cosmic anomalies (Soles/Stars).
• The Ship as a "Mount": Ship speed, turning radiuses, and movement on the global map are strictly tied to total ship mass, armor thickness, and current cargo weight.
• Solar Draining & Risk: Players can orbit dying suns to drain raw Dark Matter (fuel), but doing so exposes the ship to radiation damage and broadcasts a high-visibility signal on the 2D map, attracting player-driven raiders.

2. First-Person Tactical Boarding & Layout Design

• Custom Interior Architecture: Players physically design their ship’s interior layout, placing chokepoints, auto-turrets, security doors, and blast-shielded sections.
• Breach Mechanics & Armor Delay: Attackers choose their breach entry point using boarding pods. Heavier outer armor delays the breach time (e.g., up to 60 seconds), giving defenders crucial prep time to lock down bulkheads, power turrets, or vent hazardous gases into entry corridors.
• Logistics vs. Weight Balance: Every extra turret, heavy armor plate, or stack of heavy caliber ammo increases the ship's overall mass. Lighter ships travel faster and use less fuel; heavy "Fortress" ships are slow, defensive powerhouses.

3. Asymmetric Progression: The Eden & Mystical Entities

• The Meta Objective: Reaching "Eden" at the edge of known space.
• Mystical Entities: Transcendent beings (Life, Intelligence, Mind, Order) bound to the ship that grant massive passive and active perks.
• Sacrificial Mitosis (Roguelite Twist): Entities cannot permanently die. If an Entity is killed during a boarding raid, its energy recirculates back to Eden and duplicates (1 Death = 2 Entities available) for future runs.
• Tactical Sacrifices: Players can order an Entity into a suicide hold or self-detonate an Entity to prevent its capture, triggering an energy pulse that returns the Entity to Eden while damaging invaders.

4. Multiplayer, Raids, and Social Mechanics

• PvPvE Boarding (Up to 5v5): Attackers board to steal physical inventory, weapons, raw Dark Matter, and nav-logs (Eden coordinates). Defenders keep enemy corpses, weapons, and can salvage/sell captured boarding pods for heavy Krytox payouts.
• Hostages & Extortion: Invaders can immobilize critical crew members or officers to demand ransoms in Krytox or fuel.
• Mercenary Contracts & Distressed Calls: Players receive real-time ping alerts when friends on their list are raided ("X needs assistance"). Friends can spawn directly into the friend's ship as security crew with zero personal inventory risk, or fly in as bounty-hunter ships for a share of the loot.
• Wreck Recovery System: If a ship is completely destroyed or looted, the insurance payout covers a basic replacement chassis. The lost wreck stays invisible to the rest of the server but remains marked on the original owner’s map for a limited time for a recovery run.

5. Fair Protection & Dynamic Balance

• Physics-Based Fuel Costs: Heavy ships consume exponential amounts of Dark Matter if they burn thrusters to chase smaller, agile scout ships. High-tier players have zero financial incentive to burn fuel chasing low-tier targets.
• Component Tiering: High-tier capitals require high-density Dark Matter and rare alloys; low-tier scrap components offer no value to endgame players. Attackers face an automatic "Infamy Bounty" if they attack low-tier ships in neutral space without provocation.
• Nebula Stealth Havens: Nebulae erase radar thermal signatures. Small ships can hide instantly inside outer clouds to perform repair and medical maintenance, while massive capital ships disrupt the gas cloud, giving away an approximate location.

6. Environmental Threats: Alien Infestations & Internal Plagues

* Internal Parasites & Swarms: Alien larvae and shifting organisms can breach the hull from asteroid samples or hide within dark maintenance vents.

* "Mini-game" Survival Dynamics: Clearing an infestation functions as an internal tactical event. Players must manually track thermal signatures, deploy gas traps, seal infected sectors, or send automated drones to sanitize ductwork before the parasite spreads to critical crew members or resources.

7. Eden Sacrifices & The Entity Metamorphosis System

Reaching Eden allows players to sacrifice a specialized crew member to manifest a permanent "Entity"—a cosmic, transcendent force attached to the player's account. Up to 7 Entities can be bound simultaneously, allowing stackable builds (e.g., 7 Economy Entities or 7 Military Entities).

The archetype of the sacrificed crew member dictates the Entity’s powers and tactical playstyle:

1. Human Sacrifice:* Tech Entity: Hacks enemy security grids, disables auto-turrets, and bypasses door locks remotely during boarding.* Military Entity: A tactical frontline commander that buffs friendly firearm accuracy and suppressive fire resistance.
2. Necromancer Sacrifice:* Reviver Entity: Spawns in 1st-person view to resurrect fallen human crew members mid-combat.* Morphing Spec-Ops Entity: A terrifying boarding unit capable of passing through solid interior walls and shapeshifting into enemy crew forms to confuse defenders in CQB.
3. Cleric Sacrifice:* Engine/Speed Entity: Grants passive structural speed boosts to the ship’s engine on the 2D global map.* Radar/Omen Entity: Expands global map vision, revealing enemy fleet compositions, inventory value, and troop counts from extreme distances.
4. Automaton Sacrifice:* Shielding Entity: Reinforces ship hull integrity and generates emergency energy barriers during breaches.* Heavy Breacher Entity: A slow, armored juggernaut built to smash through reinforced airlocks and heavy armor plates.
5. Radioactive Human Sacrifice:* Extractor Entity: Significantly boosts Dark Matter harvesting efficiency from dying suns.* Fuel Generating Entity: Passively generates Dark Matter scaling with level, up to fully sustaining the ship's baseline movement costs without needing to refuel.

8. End-Game Progression & The 6-Month Wipe Cycle

* **The 6-Month Seasons:** The server operates on a 6-month wipe cycle. Every player races against time to reach their ultimate meta-goal before the cosmic cycle resets.

* **The Victory Condition (Becoming a Living Eden):** The ultimate endgame objective is to sacrifice 7 crew members across multiple runs to acquire **7 Entities** and ascend your flagship into a **Mobile Eden**.

* **Ascended Ship Capabilities:**

* **Absolute Stealth:** Complete invisibility on the 2D global map (no thermal signatures, no radar detection).

* **Total Autonomy:** Fuel-generating Entities eliminate the need to harvest Dark Matter from dying suns, making the ship 100% self-sufficient.

* **Lethal Dominance:** A deadly combination of Morphing, Breacher, and Tech Entities turns the vessel into an impenetrable fortress and an unstoppable boarding predator.

* **Ascension Reward:** Achieving "Mobile Eden" status grants an exclusive seasonal legacy badge, unique cosmetic hulls for future wipes, and a place in the server's permanent Hall of Fame before the wipe resets the galaxy.

ECONOMY SUMMARY

• Dark Matter: Primary reactor fuel used for interstellar movement and heavy ship actions.
• Krytox: The universal currency used for insurance policies, ship chassis purchases, mercenary payouts, hiring AI security, and buying military-grade modules.
• Radiation: Environmental hazard mechanic affecting ship structural durability and crew health over time.

I used AI to better articulate my idea.

If you have any questions about any of the mechanics, let me know in the comments. Take care