I Am The Master Of The Universe!

Universim – Previewed

By Julie Morley

[divider] [dropcap]W[/dropcap]ith great power comes great responsibility and when you’re the god of an entire planet, that can be quite a bit to put on your plate. Starting from the ground up, watching the little people grow and develop into mature, civilized individuals, building up their homes, then villages, then towns, and then cities littered with skyscrapers and advanced technology. The people who needed to be taught how to start a fire are now developing nuclear weaponry and are threatening to go to war. Well, now they’ve created a space exploration program and they have space shuttles, ready to explore the universe and locate other planets to inhabit.

All of this is yours in The Universim.

Crytivo and Alex Koshelkov wanted to create a god-simulator game different from all the others. There are several city and gold simulator games that give the player free reign to develop a city and watch the population grow, but none of them ever really touched on the idea of Space. In The Universim, players are essentially god, creating life on a small planet and much like tending a plant, nurturing it to full blossom. When the time is right, the human beings will develop a space program to further explore the universe and colonize it. Thus expanding you, the player’s, galactic empire.

The player decides where they want the cities to be located and places down an ‘epicenter.’ The epicenter is supposed to be the heart of every city. As time goes on, as the population grows, naturally the city will expand. But cities will only thrive in specific locations. By putting the epicenter in the desert, you risk a slow expansion rate since resources are scarce and food sources are lacking.

Resources are the most important thing on the planet. They determine the solidity of the civilization and how they are going to grow. Resources can contribute to technological advancement or even empire expansion. When resources are low and the space program has advanced, the civilization will send out a crew to settle on an additional planet for expansion.

But be warned, players should research the planets prior to settlement. By reading the stats and studying weather patterns, the settlement team can land in safe locations that are livable.

Like on our planet, disasters happen and they’re awful. Hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes, the works, all can happen on your planet as well, and in some cases, as your hand. If the civilization is progressing in an unlikable way, spite them! Express your fury with a good old tornado to show them who’s in charge.

In addition to that, just like here, there are diseases galore. Epidemics will happen frequently in Universim. Sometimes they will be unpredictable and slow, others will rage its way through the population and decrease your head count. By paying attention to the Dynamic News System, you will be informed of any diseases that are popping up.

Universim is seeking funding through Kickstarter, aiming for $320K. The campaign will end on May 24.

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[facebook][tweet][Google][pinterest][follow id=”Cliqist” size=”large” count=”true” ] [author image=”http://cliqist.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/julie.jpg” ]Julie Morley is a freelance writer and comic artist from Spring, Texas. She attended the Academy of Art University for two years, studying Animation and Illustration. Whilst here, she learned about writing comic scripts, storyboards, and general storytelling.  Since leaving college, she has been working on personal comic projects, stories, and illustrations. She aspires to release a self published comic within two years. For the majority of her life, she has been playing console games, typically being third-person shooters and sandboxes. Her favorite game of existence is Dark Cloud II (Dark Chronicle) and her favorite Indie game is Gone Home.[/author]