Statera

Statera is a game about balance. Balance your nature consuming civilisation with the surrounding habitat.

You need to ensure the survival of your population at all costs. You can grow further, but the price tag is immense. At some point you can not repair the damage done. An unbearable future with eventual death of your civilisation. The alternative? Butcher your people. If they are not too many, you can continue to live.

But, what if you dislike those scenarios? Given, both are extremes, but extremes that are unstoppable if you continue to ignore. You may want to retain choice. You can start to butcher some people today and destroy some parts of your habitat, but that is an inferior choice. You can gain so much more from the nature and for your civilisation.

Look around. Take a ramble through the habitat. You may have noticed some glowing plants. They are precious specimen. Once back in town, visit your local research facility. They will equip you with a sample container and expect you to bring back a combination of samples, they can use to learn. What they learn is up to you to find out, but word is going around that it can be used to improve your situation. An actual choice!

Now get in the game! Time is running… even though very slow.

Systems that nobody notice

If you happen to have read a few conclusions, you may noticed this already: Information starvation is a recurring issue. However, this prototype was one of the worst. There are two main systems. First there is a build up game mechanic to construct the city. However we never show you the resources you have. Also there are area effects shown as particle effect above the building on placement that are easy to not see. Second, your city produces pollution that is distributed around it and absorbed by each plant. Plants can only absorb so much and get ill the more pollution they absorb. The iller the plant the blotchier it appears. You can also get a sample gun and take samples from special plants (they glow) to unlock improved buildings. This all ties into an environment with three seasons that further changes variables. Nope, these changes aren’t communicated either. Additionally, the whole resource part of the prototype is also not balanced.

However, the pollution system works and the upgrade system can be made understandable with an encyclopaedia or some papers stuck to a wall describing the five plant ressources. The build up mechanics probably need some deeper overhaul but for startes we would want to show the resources in the HUD along with the production of the current or the three different cycles and the pollution. The area effects would probably need some more thought and display on the ground. So it is not that it is unfixable but rather that we had not enough time to implement feedback and did not prioritize it the way I prioritize it nowadays which is a learning this project majorly contributed to.