Simon Roth’s sci-fi survival game Maia [official site] has been in deep development for a while now – the last time we mentioned it was 2014 and it had already been in Early Access for the better part of a year. Roth has continued toiling away at his Dungeon Keeper In Space, releasing videos now and again of its status.
For those counting at home, we are now up to Update 0.50. It’s a doozy – among other things it takes a giant whack at critical gameplay issues.
Simon Roth is taken by a fey mood!
Simon Roth screams "I must have Kickstarter funds!"
Thankfully the fortress contains more than the funds required, saving Simon Roth from a slow descent towards insanity.
Simon Roth works furiously!
But what is he building in there, locked away inside his room? Something terrible, forged in bone?
Simon Roth, Programmer has created Maia, an in-development, Dungeon Keeper-like space colony management game available in Early Access. Update 0.46 is out and there's a video and details below.
Maia, the Dungeon-Keeper-in-space game from Simon Roth that’s been forging through Early Access for the best part of a year, is utterly fascinating. It’s dedicated to accurate simulation to the point of internal bodily functions governing whether a colonist lives or dies, and it’s full of future tech based upon real world science extrapolated to logical outcomes.
Each new update brings more systems, and another level of complexity to tinker with. 0.45 adds a bunch of research options which provide perks to help survival – which is a lot more practical than the last update, which brought procedural haikus to the mailing system colonists used to communicate. Simon’s put together a video showing off the new features.
The Maian Prophecy came true after all! Just as was foretold by a news post I wrote a couple months ago, so shall it be. Maia is now available on Steam Early Access, and I’m aching to worm my futuristically gloved hands into its steaming, ropey gut pile of systems and AIs. The Dungeon Keeper and Dwarf Fortress-inspired colony sim is, however, currently not working for me, as it launches at a weird, choppy resolution and I can’t find any way to fix it. Boo. Maybe you’ll have better luck, though?
Maia really does sound insanely marvelous, doesn’t it? It’s got all the complexity of a whirring, churning management simulation paired with the more down-to-earth-space personal side of something like The Sims or even Dwarf Fortress. The game’s planet is a harsh, unwelcoming place, but it greeted Adam with a brain-warming embrace. He quickly fell in love, and – via the ropey spinal strands of our official hivemind apparatus – so did the rest of RPS. But when can you pluck your own bendy straw into Maia’s thick systemic stew? Well, you’ve still got a bit of a wait ahead of you, but December’s not that far off.
Philosophy would be so much easier if we could use console commands. Here’s a conundrum people in the new Maia alpha are asking: “What comes first? The door, or the workshop that you need to build to build the workshop door?” It’s actually a trick question, and the answer is that you need to build the workshop first, then use debug commands to place a door. So technically the workshop. As the video shows, the door to the workshop is the first step on the space colony’s sodden road to self-sufficiency, with the systemic strategy game’s colonists using the workshop to build a table to use the table to get to work. If you add lights to the workshop, the people will be able to build things in a more efficient manner. Brilliant!
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Questioning crowds about their commitment to Maia caused one of the most tense Kickstarters ever. It eventually cleared the goal with room to spare, but for a time the future was not so certain for the space colony management simulator. With the game on firmer footing, and the alpha in the hands of backers, developer Simon Roth has taken the next and inevitable step of dropping it on Steam Greenlight and hoping for a positive community reaction. He’s even rustled up a new trailer for the very purpose. Let’s look.
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RPS Feature Devils and Details
At the first Rezzed, a year ago, I saw Maia for the first time. Back then, before the nail-biting Kickstarter campaign, what I was shown was more engine than game, an almost frighteningly impressive technical achievement, created by one person and almost tentatively shown to a few eager onlookers. A couple of days ago, I saw the game again. It isn’t finished but it was one of the most intriguing propositions at a show packed with variety.
Three cheers for the small god. A couple of days ago things looked a wee bit shaky for Simon Roth’s Dungeon Keeper and Dwarf Fortress-inspired god game Maia, but a flurry of Kickstarting over the weekend has seen it beat its once faintly ridiculous-seeming £100,000 target and reach the esteemed status of A Thing That Is Happening.
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RPS Feature "The most accurate Marmite simulation ever seen"
Peter Molyneux’s unnervingly vague but tear-jerking Project GODUS isn’t the only god game revival on the crowd-funded block. British indie dev Simon Roth is in the last mile of seeking pledges for his sci-fi-themed, Dungeon Keeper and Dwarf Fortress-inspired, procedurally-generated management game Maia. Between its rather spangly proprietary engine and the fact that there’s a whole lot of it being shown off already, I’m personally much more interested in this modernised, maximised rethink of the house that Bullfrog made than I am in the wild promises of Dungeon Keeper’s oft-disproved original lead.
With £63,000 of the required £100,000 in the bag and just four days left on the Kick-clock, it’s looking likely that Maia will go down to the wire. I chatted to the game’s lead, Simon Roth (ex of Frontier and Mode 7) about whether he thinks he’ll make it, the game’s procedural cleverness, his 70s sci-fi inspirations, why god games declined and, opportunist that I am, what he makes of Molyneux’s accidental rival project.
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With Britstarter well under way, it’s time for me to point to one of the most interesting projects to have appeared, which is Simon Roth’s Maia. The project – we’ve mentioned a few times – proposes a planet-colonising God game which will see players “excavate an underground colony to escape the hostile surface of the world.” Needless to say, there’s plenty of base-building and colonist-caring staples going to go in there too. It’s one of the more promising indie ideas to have brought its pitch to Kickstarter this year. Brit indie Roth cites both 70s sci-fi and Bullfrog-era God games as major influences, both things which make our glands release the Want enzyme. Roth explains himself – somewhat disconcertingly – to camera in the pitch video, which you can see below.
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Maia, the procedural, Dungeon Keeper-esque space management/god game from newly ex-Mode Sevener Simon Roth, is right up there in the top branches of indie games to stare at with creepily unblinking desire. A procedural world, taking a few notes from the likes of Dwarf Fortress and Minecraft, and a highly ambitious proprietary engine to realise it all in. And, now, a first person mode, straight outta Dungeon Keeper. Here’s the trippy view from behund the eyeballs of one of Maia’s IMP bots.
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Simon Roth is best known as the newest recruit to Frozen Synapse creators Mode 7, but he’s also one of the most veteran developers in the entire history of the world, if my research is correct. And he’s moonlighting on a side-project all of his own, the Bullfrog/early Maxis-inspired sci-fi management game Maia. This isn’t a matter of keeping colonists happy with space ice cream and zero-grav toilets – we’re promised the likes of ‘up to 2KM X 2KM X 2KM of procedural world’, water and lava simulation, defensive structures to fend off hostile wildlife, bipolar robots and a first-person mode.
Oh, dare I dream ‘sci-fi Dungeon Keeper’?
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We all loved Terry Cavanagh’s wonderful VVVVVV last year, didn’t we? Well I certainly did, that Kieron bloke did, and a straw poll of my hands unanimously voted in favour it. Universal approval if ever I saw it. Fantastic news: Terry has joined up with programmer Simon Roth to push out a major update to VVVVVV. Here’s the what’s new in VVVVVVersion 2.0: Read the rest of this entry »
