Homestead Windows, Mac game

About the Game

Homestead is a single player sandbox game focused on building and maintaining a small community of settlers that live in a remote wilderness. The name ‘Homestead’ comes from the homesteading principle by which one can claim ownership of unowned land by performing work on it. All the settlers in the game are individuals, and have their own preferences for both work and leisure. Also, they are all required to eat, sleep and maintain their body heat to stay alive.

You control your settlers by giving them professions, or by giving them orders. You can form groups that are sent out to explore the lands, harvest resources, go fishing and hunt for animals. You can manage social conditions (for example by building a tavern where they can socialize after work) and implement policies which affects the interaction of your settlers. You can build houses, production buildings and storages. You can control the production of tools and clothes, and you can setup lines of trading with AI:s that you meet.

The game features a simulated ecosystem which is affected by your settlers, and which affects them back. Resources either grow dynamically (for example berries), or are static (for example stones). All animals are individuals, and depend on food availability, weather etc, to stay alive. The weather follows the seasons, so your settlers need to adapt to both warm and cold weather, and to storms that may cause havoc.

You control your settlers’ use of the resources. So, if you are not careful, harvesting may lead to overuse (possibly eliminating a resource), prevent regeneration, or force animals to relocate to other areas.

A village in the game is called a homestead. The area of the homestead depends on the area covered by the buildings and the area worked by the settlers. Spending time in the homestead improves the well-being of the settlers (they feel at home), while wild animals will keep away from the homestead.

Your planning and resourcefulness will decide the fate of your settlers and determine if your settlement will survive, both through good times and bad.

Future

In the future, we have plans for story mode and multiplayer.

Development

The game is currently being developed, and the alpha is expected in Q1 2017.

See more at Homesteadgame.com