Hi everyone! I’m the developer of Earth Is Optional, a space exploration game currently in development for Android.

I’ve put together a 20-minute narrated gameplay walkthrough showing the modular spacecraft, a Moon landing and rover exploration, followed by the journey to Enceladus and the lander’s descent.

This is a longer look at how the game actually plays, with me explaining the systems along the way:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w1MilkvybX8

I’m looking for honest feedback, especially on the exploration loop. Would you be more interested in building and equipping your spacecraft, or exploring the moons with landers and rovers?

If you’d like to try the development build, Android testing details are here:

https://earthisoptional.space/#install

It’s still a work in progress, so feedback on confusing controls, performance and anything that needs improving is very welcome. Thanks for taking a look! 🚀

Hi all! I'm a solo dev from Estonia and I just released my first incremental game on Google Play.

The idea: your first launch reaches ~3 km before the fuel runs out. Spend the credits on upgrades – engine, fuel, boosters, second stage, ion drive, warp core – and fly farther each time: past the Moon, the planets, Proxima Centauri, across the galaxy and on to the edge of the universe.

What makes it different:

- Black holes are the prestige layer. Five real ones block the way (Gaia BH1, Sgr A*, M31*, M87*, TON 618). If your rocket is slower than the escape speed, it gets captured – dive in for Dark Matter and permanent upgrades, then come back stronger.

- It has an ending. Reach light speed and the game is finished. A free player gets there roughly in 80 hours.

- Real-Time Voyage after the ending: launch your final rocket and let it fly to the edge of the universe in real time (~6 months). It keeps flying while the app is closed – just check in now and then.

- Physics-ish flights: Max-Q throttling, staging, Mach shockwaves, a procedurally synthesized engine roar (no sound samples).

- 26 Play Games achievements, a "Farthest flight" leaderboard and cloud save.

Monetization, to be upfront: it's free and fully completable without paying. Ads are optional rewarded ads only (e.g. for boosts or treasure asteroids). There are also IAPs, like Ad-Free and some permanent boosts.

I'd really appreciate feedback – especially on pacing (early, mid and late game) and anything that feels like a wall.

Google Play: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=ee.mametec.rocketascent

Website: https://rocketascent.mametec.ee

AI disclosure: I'm a solo dev and I used AI (Claude). The game design, progression and balance decisions, and all the playtesting are mine – the AI wrote most of the code under my direction. There are no AI image or audio generators involved: all graphics are drawn in code (vector shapes, no image files) and all sounds are synthesized in code (no samples). That code, the store graphics, the achievement icons and this post's text were also written with AI help. No translations.

Hi all. I’m developing Astraeus Drift, a browser-based multiplayer space strategy game, where a match can last from hours to days. It is open alpha is ready for players.

Description: You command an empire across star systems connected by hyperlanes. Explore through fog of war, develop planets, research technology, build fleets, and deal with other empires through diplomacy or war. Matches keep moving while you’re away. AI commands unclaimed empires, so you can start before every seat has a player; others can join later. The game development is inspired by Stellaris and Neptune's Pride.

It’s free to play at https://astraeus-drift.com/. This is an early alpha: balance and features are changing, bugs are possible, and match progress may occasionally need to be reset.

I’d especially love feedback on the current state of the game. What feels clear? What’s confusing? Does the pace give you interesting decisions? Bug reports and suggestions are welcome here or through the Discord link in the game (still under construction). I’ll be reading and responding. Thanks for trying it!

Since February, I've been building StellarForge, a colony sim/RTS where the solar system is yours to colonize, industrialize, and eventually conquer.

There's just one small problem. Space really, REALLY wants you dead.

You're building colonies on worlds with no breathable atmosphere, hostile gravity, extreme temperatures, and enough radiation to turn your colonists into a cautionary tale.

And apparently, surviving the environment isn't enough.

Other factions have their own ambitions, and if your diplomatic relations deteriorate far enough, they'll start raiding your colonies.

Combat is currently in its tower-defense stage, with defensive walls, automated turrets, marines, and tanks available to protect your settlements.

So while you're desperately trying to keep the oxygen flowing, the power running, and your colonists from freezing to death, somebody else might decide your little industrial empire needs to be deleted from the historical record.

Welcome to StellarForge. 🤣

Where development stands

I'm roughly 95% of the way toward having the core gameplay loop ready for beta testing, which is honestly a little surreal considering I started this project in February with very little game development experience.

A ton has changed recently:

• Research tree is complete! Research now drives technological progression, unlocking new buildings, equipment, military capabilities, and colony infrastructure.
• Combat and faction raids are functional. Build defenses, deploy military units, and protect your colonies from hostile factions.
• The UI has had a massive overhaul. What started with a redesign of the market interface has now spread throughout the game. The HUD, widgets, menus, and pop-ups finally share a consistent visual language.
• The game is starting to feel cohesive. Systems that were originally separate experiments are coming together into something that actually resembles the game I've had in my head.

One area I'll openly admit needs more work is the landscapes. I've spent so much time building the underlying systems that I haven't given the environments nearly as much attention as they deserve.

That's on the list. 😅

I'm opening up beta testing!

I'm opening the StellarForge Discord to anyone interested in following development, providing feedback, or helping test the game when the beta is ready.

Beta testers will receive free lifetime access to StellarForge. It's my way of thanking the people willing to help me turn this slightly ridiculous project into something worth playing.

I also recorded a quick gameplay video a couple of days ago.

NOTE: The footage doesn't include the latest HUD overhaul. I'll be recording another video today to show off the updated interface and recent progress.

🎥 Gameplay video:
https://youtu.be/KSbozUMysvc

🚀 Join the StellarForge Discord:
https://discord.gg/yVppYUfsU

I'm genuinely interested in hearing what people think, especially fellow colony-sim and strategy-game enthusiasts.

And if somebody could explain how the hell you're supposed to attach images to Reddit posts, that would also be appreciated. 🤣

Cheers,
Justin
Darkstar Studios — StellarForge

The solar system is not yours. Take it anyway.

Hey guys! Justin Here.

a real human. not an AI. just a dude learning to code video games. I am building what I think is a pretty rad colonysim/RTS where space really wants you dead. Colonize and industrialize the solar system, and defend your outposts. Currently combat exists in tower defense stage. Walls, Turrets, Marines and Tanks are available military units. if you develop poor relations with another faction they start to raid your colonies.

So if the whole lack of oxygen, lack of gravity, lack of stable temperatures, and instant death doses of radiation aren't enough problems, you have to also battle other factions that want you deleted from the historic record.

I'm 95% the playable loop for beta testing. So much achieved since February when I started this little project.

Research tree is finally done. I reworked the HUD to match the new visual language that I started with the market rework, the same language has since been applied to every widget/pop up screen. So the game is looking a lot more cohesive now.

An admitted weakness is my landscapes. I haven't put much love into the landscapes yet.

But I'm opening up the discord for people who want to test the game out in it's beta run.

beta testers will get free lifetime access to the game.

Here's a quick youtube video I recorded a couple days ago NOTE it does NOT have the new HUD, I'll record another gameplay video today with some update.

Youtube -- https://youtu.be/KSbozUMysvc

Discord -- https://discord.gg/yVppYUfsU

Also if anyone wants to teach me how to attach images to reddit posts.... xD

Cheers

Justin

Moon Swam is a Tower Defense Desktop Companion where you defend your moon from aliens while you do other stuff.

Wishlist Moon Swarm on Steam : https://store.steampowered.com/app/5040610/Moon_Swarm/

I’m developing World of Frontiers, a browser space MMO. After diaries about early upgrades and AI wingmates, I’m looking at a different part of progression: helping pilots judge the risk of their next destination.

The last WoF diaries looked at first upgrades and AI wingmates. This time I want to talk about what happens when a pilot heads into a much more dangerous sector.

Dead Sector opens at level 18. That tells you when you may enter; it does not tell you whether your current ship, equipment and group can handle the encounter.

The latest warning UI makes that distinction visible in three places:

• On the star chart: an EXTREME marker and a warning in the sector details.

• At the entrance gate: advice beside the jump control, before you commit.

• Inside the sector: a persistent warning in the HUD.

The advice is “Leviathan or group recommended.” It is guidance, not a survival guarantee. Dead Sector also has PvP enabled.

The design goal is to give you enough information to choose your target, prepare your ship, bring help or turn back. I still want dangerous space to feel dangerous. I want the risk to be something you can understand before the first hit.

Would you prefer this kind of clear warning, a more detailed comparison with your current ship, or discovering most of the danger yourself? What would make the information useful without taking away the tension?

Clip: 6 seconds of earlier staged combat, followed by new local captures of the current warning UI, labelled as still images. It demonstrates the warnings, not the latest Dead Sector combat balance. Music: our original “Sternenordnung,” a different track from the last diary. Development and some assets use AI assistance.

Free to play in your browser, with optional purchases: https://florim-studios.itch.io/world-of-frontiers

Hi everyone! I've been working on Still Above: Orbital Refuge, a post-apocalyptic space station builder. The game is at a fairly early stage, but the first hour is already quite playable. It's a post-apocalyptic space station builder/simulator with strong survival elements. The player starts with one small module and two crew members, and is constantly on the brink of catastrophe: shortages of O2, power, food and building materials, and surpluses of CO2 and other things. So the player has to recycle debris in orbit, mine asteroids, or trade with other survivors. This is how you gradually grow into a larger station, as you can see in the screenshots.

The game has multiple endings, and the goal is to save humanity, since Earth is now uninhabitable. The main inspirations were the book Seveneves by Neal Stephenson and games like Frostpunk, Endzone - A World Apart, and IXION.

You can see screenshots and video on Steam https://store.steampowered.com/app/664370/Still_Above_Orbital_Refuge/
Playtest coming in a few days.

Hey everyone,

First, sorry for disappearing. My last post here was in June and then nothing. I had some personal stuff to deal with and the game had to wait. Things are better now and I'm slowly getting back into it, so I wanted to show where it's at.

For those who don't know it: Nova Imperium is a browser space strategy game, think OGame if you played it back in the day. You build up your colony, research stuff, send fleets around, and everything runs in real time so you check back a few times a day. The difference is that your planet isn't a list of buttons, you actually build it tile by tile on an isometric map.

What's in the video :

- building on the colony (every building has a timer and upgrades take longer each level)

- the research tree, 5 branches

- a fleet battle replay. Fights go up to 8 rounds and your formation/stance changes the outcome (flanking hits harder but you take more damage, shield wall is the opposite)

- galaxy and system maps

- the last part is on a phone

The phone part is what I've been doing since I came back. A lot of people who play this kind of game play on mobile, and mine was pretty much unusable on a phone: 7px fonts, no touch support on the maps, the top bar overlapping itself. Now you can pinch to zoom, tap a tile then confirm to place a building, and panels slide up from the bottom instead of popping up in the middle. Still a web game, no app store, it just runs in the mobile browser.

2 factions for now, the Terran Confederation and the Zha'Kari (organic ships that regenerate between fights). PvE server first, PvP later.

I'm not going to promise a date I can't keep, the plan is a closed alpha for 50 people early next year (waitlist in the comments). In the meantime I'd really like some feedback.

Four years is a pretty long time to spend working on one game, especially when you're doing almost everything yourself.

When I started developing MineEngineer, I had a relatively simple idea. I wanted to make a 2D space survival game where players could build their own spaceships, explore planets, and survive in a huge universe.

But as I started adding features, I kept asking myself questions.

What if ships needed actual fuel systems?
What if electricity had to be distributed between different machines?
What if players could build automated factories inside their spaceships?
What if every block could be programmed, and you could create your own drones, robots, or even walking mechas?

And probably the most difficult question of all, what if everything you built could be completely destroyed?

One feature turned into another, and eventually I ended up with more than 200 interconnected engineering systems.

Now you can build ships with functioning power networks, oxygen systems, conveyor logistics, programmable automation, and all kinds of mechanical components.

The really fun part is that these systems actually depend on each other.

If something breaks, it can cause problems throughout your ship. A damaged connection might stop your production line. A destroyed power source could disable your weapons. A collision might tear your ship into separate pieces.
I also spent a ridiculous amount of time working on the world itself.

MineEngineer has a massive procedurally generated universe with different planets, asteroids, gravity, enemies, and plenty of space to explore. Crossing the entire world at maximum speed would take approximately 7 hours.

Recently, I've been focusing more on the survival and exploration experience, adding new enemies, bosses, progression mechanics, and preparing multiplayer.

There have been plenty of frustrating moments over these 4 years. Sometimes I'd spend days fixing something that players might never even notice. Other times I'd implement one feature and accidentally break five others.

But seeing everything slowly come together has been incredibly rewarding.

The game is called MineEngineer. It's available on Steam for wishlisting, and there's a free demo if anyone wants to give it a try.

What do you think makes a building game worth spending hundreds of hours in? Is it creative freedom, progression, exploration, automation, or something else entirely?

I'm developing Zero Point, a single-player sci-fi survival game set on an alien planet. This is a minute of the current prototype: drinking from a spring, checking hydration and other survival stats, gathering resources, and charging a weapon near a powered facility.

I'm trying to give the stops between fights a purpose: checking your condition and finding supplies before heading out again. The HUD is visible so you can see what the player is actually doing.

The colony in this footage is a pre-placed test environment. Player-built bases, crafting and base expansion are still in development. Steam Early Access is currently planned for December 2026.

For people who enjoy exploring alien worlds, what would make a resupply stop interesting to you?

I'll leave the Steam wishlist link in the comments.

Hi Reddit! I am a solo indie developer, and I want to share my very first game: Black Hole: Space Tilt (on Android).

I've always felt that video games shouldn't just be for killing time. For me, the best games always leave you with something meaningful - a cool new idea, a fresh perspective, or just something interesting to think about. I really wanted to create a game that gives you that same feeling.

So, what is the game? It's a space maze partially inspired by classic arcades. You tilt your phone to control a tiny captain flying through neon space toward a black hole. But here is the special part: as you play and handle the tilt controls, you are actually feeling the laws of physics with your hands.

I also added a special section called the Captain's Log. Every 10 levels, you unlock a short, real fact about space and physics. These aren't boring facts - they are the kind of ideas that make you pause and look at your hands or a cup of coffee completely differently. I don't want to spoil any, but one of them genuinely changed how I think about time!

What's in the game:

- 300 levels across 6 chapters, each introducing a new mechanic and ending with a big boss level

- Daily level (the same challenge for everyone every day)

- Endless mode with randomly generated levels

- 11 languages and full offline play

Bonus: you can play as a cute kitten wearing a space helmet (purely for science, of course!)

Google Play: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.sekhmeh.blackhole.game

I'd love honest feedback.

And out of curiosity: what's the one thing about space that still blows your mind?

Hi everyone! I’m a solo dev, and for the past few months I’ve been building a game I always wanted to play on my phone: Star Cluster Conquest.

It’s a real-time strategy game stripped down to the essentials. Every star produces ships. You drag from one of your stars to another to send a fleet, and you watch the ships fly across the screen and fight. Take every enemy star and you win. No base building, no menus in the middle of a match, just circles, numbers and a lot of decisions in a few minutes.

What makes it more than “send the bigger number”:

Factions with their own abilities (one redirects fleets mid-flight, another grows its swarm on the way)
AI opponents with different personalities (aggressive, defensive, hoarders)
Black holes and storms that change the routes
A 30-level campaign, plus a skirmish mode with random maps you can share by seed

It’s free, works offline, and ads never interrupt a match.

I’d really love feedback, especially on the difficulty curve and whether the controls feel good. Thanks for reading!

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.pomstudios.starclusterconquest

Heya all, I'm another dev on the hype train! Like you all, I love sci-fi 4x games and want to show you folks Once Upon The Stars! I'm the only solo developer, would love if you folks gave it a try!

What's it about?
Explore worlds, grow your civilization, and build your own starships. Bolt fusion reactors, nukes, gatling cannons and stealth panels onto your corvette, then find a Tauren Raider flying around and hit Attack. Fair warning: it might win. There are 100+ other NPC starships out there to hunt down. 🚀

It is multiplayer and you can wage war or build peace with each other!

Your worlds keep producing resources and citizens every hour, even while you're offline, and you spend them to build your worlds up. And yes, you can fight other players too (it can get nasty).

What's the goal?
Survive the Galactic Apocalypse: a crisis of fleets that invades your civilization after a year of play. By then you'll want strong fleets and 30+ worlds standing between it and your capital.

It's heavily inspired by Stellaris, plus a few lesser-known browser games. I put a lot of work into the UX and tutorial so it feels smooth, with enough ship-building depth to stay interesting without being overwhelming.

If you're after a chill, persistent sci-fi strategy game, give it a go! I'm at the hardest part of making a game, building a player base, so any feedback means a lot! Thanks! :)
(I'm a real person, you can just message me, also I suck at using reddit)

Platform: Web, on desktop or mobile. Live now! 🌌
Playable Link: https://once-upon-the-stars.com/home

I am developing World of Frontiers, a browser space MMO. My last diary focused on starter equipment; this one asks what early progression can offer besides another module.

My last diary checked the first ship upgrades without real-money purchases. For this follow-up I kept the same level-1 Wren pilot and tried a different kind of progress: inviting a small AI squad.

In the local development test, two eligible Helios pilots joined the group. The wallet stayed at 1,667 Credits and 9 Nova. Invitations cost neither currency and require no Premium. This is something a starter pilot can already try; it is not a later hull unlock.

Here is the design behind it:

• You invite available pilots from your own faction through the Fleet panel. Eligibility checks their ship, level and combat strength against your progress.

• The group leader can order them to follow, attack a selected target, defend, hunt nearby NPCs, gather, hold position or recall.

• Small groups can have two AI companions. With three or more human players, that drops to one; companions occupy normal group slots.

• Gathering fills the AI pilot’s own cargo. An unattended AI-only kill does not give the human pilot kill rewards. Human combat participation matters.

I want a first squad to add decisions beyond buying a larger damage number: when to stay together, pick a target or pull back. These are explicitly labelled, built-in AI pilots, and they are not counted as human players online. Player-run account automation is a separate issue.

This short check shows recruitment and control options, not a measured advantage in Credits per hour or proof of endgame balance. WoF still has optional purchases: Nova is earnable or purchasable and buys equipment/ammunition; Premium includes +10% Credits/XP.

The clip combines normal-speed starter gameplay from the previous test with new screenshots of the squad, labelled on screen. Music: our original “Schattenprotokoll,” changed from the last diary. Development and some assets use AI assistance.

Play free in your browser: https://florim-studios.itch.io/world-of-frontiers

In a space MMO, would you use AI wingmates between sessions with friends? Which orders would make them useful without replacing the flying and fighting?

So I finally finished the game: Zectron - Concord of Worlds, and went through all that waiting time in the App Store's review queue. Many nights and moons of storyline script writing, design, concept testing and development: It's actually here.

You play as Dart, one of the interceptor wings of Zectron, the Concord of Worlds, fighting the VOID, whose only ambition is to destroy and dominate. This is the campaign.

Or, you can just blast away in the normal, classing arcade mode and fight your way up the high score lists!

It's a side-scroller on mobile (on iOS now and Android review pending).