THQ Nordic and Mirage Game Studios have released a fresh trailer and look at their alien property development game, Space for Sale. We had a slightly more in depth look at this game, taking in the quirky atmosphere and tone to this frankly adorable new construction game.
Space for Sale whisks you away to alien worlds, with the goal to make them habitable and then build new dream homes for a menagerie of alien clients. All of this can be played solo or in two player co-op.
The gameplay loop is pretty straightforward, with a base of operations at the heart of your business, giving you the space to carft using the resources gathered. Clients will periodically appear, giving you a request for what they want – The Glorpsons, for example, wanted a small home with “captivating nature” that is “abnormal”.
From there you head out to find them a suitable plot of land – by a waterfall in this case – drawing it out with light beams and then getting to work on placing and constructing their building. Mirage Game Studios has made sure that, while it’s a top-down isometric view, you’re still very involved in the construction, having to move materials and finish off different parts of structures to finish them. After that, it’s connecting the property up to electrics – that waterfall makes a handy spot for a water wheel power generator – and then get them to move in.
As the game progresses, things get more complex with more onerous demands from clients, the need to balance plot placement and take a burgeoning alien neighbourhood’s various inhabitants and cultural clashes into account.
There will be plenty of harnessing and fighting against the planet’s nature. On the one hand, there’s straight forward looking resource gathering, while your technology will evolve to harness natural attributes, like discovering a tree that zaps you with electricity, which can be harnessed to feed your power grid. There’s also hostile creatures, and the spread of Space Rot that you need to fight back.
Space Rot will attack you when you’re near, with very Day of the Tentacle-looking green and purple tentacles popping out of the ground and trying to take a swipe. It’s more than that, though, with the rot able to grow into large boss fight encounters that you need to fend off.
Space for Sale looks like a perfect game for anyone that wants a new cosy management sim, but with some fun twists to a sci-fi alien setting instead of being overly cute.
There’s no release date set for Space for Sale yet, but the game is in development for PC and has a closed beta phase planned – register interest at the Space for Sale site.
