If there’s one thing I admire about management sims set in space, it’s that they’re usually very colourful. I like the look of Starmancer because it doesn’t look too futuristic either. In lots of the rooms there’s just normal wallpaper, and you can even spot a jukebox in the bedroom. Not everything has to be metallic and harsh-looking in space. In Starmancer, you play as an AI overlord who must grow humans to populate a space station, and then look after them so that they don’t get eaten by aliens. Or you can go rogue and let the aliens in. It’s up to you! Like lots of these sorts of games, the goal is to create a utopia for these people to live in. Your humans will get sad, for example, if you throw their friends out of an airlock. This could lead to a mutiny, but then you could just open more airlocks and ditch the ringleaders. Fair warning: your colonists also have insanity levels, and spacing lots of their pals could lead to “homicidal rampages”, according to the Steam page. You can customise your space station, give your humans missions, trade with other factions and more. Back when the devs first launched the game’s Kickstarter campaign, they said Starmancer was influenced by Dwarf Fortress, which is cool. Starmancer will be available on Steam in early access on August 5th, priced £17/$20/€20. It’ll also be on GOG, but hasn’t got a game page there just yet. E3 2021 may be over but our memories live on - see everything on our E3 hub. Many more big game showcases and streams are still to come this summer, leading up to Gamescom, so see our summer games stream schedule to stay up to date.
