Alien Horizon
A downloadable game for Windows
Alien Horizon is a sci-fi survival city builder set on an inhospitable alien planet.
Faced with imminent destruction of Earth, humanity pooled together their resources and sent sleeper ships to nearby potentially habitable planets. But this one turned out to be much less habitable than expected. Can you survive anyway?
Features complex resource management, no contact with Earth, exploration of a large randomly generated map, research, management of public transport, a system of laws (will be greatly expanded in the future) and more.
Currently in development, free until further notice.
Check out the Discord server for updates and development progress.
Like what you're seeing? You can support development on Patreon or Liberapay.
Status | In development |
Platforms | Windows |
Rating | Rated 4.8 out of 5 stars (6 total ratings) |
Author | Purple Nebula |
Genre | Strategy, Survival |
Made with | MonoGame |
Tags | City Builder, Management, Sci-fi, Singleplayer |
Average session | A few hours |
Links | Patreon, Community |
Download
Install instructions
You may need to install Microsoft .NET Core if you don't have it already. You will be prompted when you launch the game.
Development log
- Fix patch 24.10.1043 days ago
- New version 24.09.2855 days ago
- Update stream announcement (Autumn 2024)62 days ago
- Fix and balance patch 24.07.12Jul 12, 2024
- New version 24.06.28Jun 28, 2024
- Update stream announcement (Summer 2024)Jun 21, 2024
- Fix and balance patch 24.05.03May 03, 2024
- New version 24.04.12Apr 12, 2024
Comments
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New version feedback
First of all, thank you for this wonderful game. I usually don’t go for alphas, betas or early access but I’m very glad I opened an exception to this masterclass colony sim.
I struggled to decide if I should post this here or on Steam but I decided here because of less noise. So, here are my observations with this new version.
I noticed that when there is a power shutdown the logistics office from the ship is the first one to shut down. I don’t know if this is okay: one because it is directly connected to the ship and, second because when you do have an external logistic office that seems to be the last one to shut down.
(my biggest issue so far) the job assignment AI. When you don’t have enough people to fill the jobs the AI seems to fill generic jobs with geologists and doctors first, leaving your mines and clinics understaffed. Always. And when you do have enough colonists, the AI does not reassign them back to their mandatory position. First I found annoying when my colony was 200 people but now, with close to 1000 this is really hurting.
Balance between construction and maintenance: I know you can set the focus on the construction offices but I dare not change them to anything other than maintenance because there is never enough people doing it. Like idle workers but still a lot of maintenance to do. I have not digged too much on this, it is just an impression. Maybe a future feature would be a global slider to determine what percentage between construction and maintenance? Just throwing ideas out there.
Clinics are still hoarding food. This is not new. I believe they get it for treatment purposes but when there is a shortage people start starving while the clinic is full of food. My workaround is just shut it down till the trucks remove the food and then just turn it back on, but that is less than ideal.
There is some weird issue with farms. Every once in a while it’ll not get the nitrate or sulfate it needs and just shut down. I noticed this on multi-queue farms but I have not seen in single queue farms (so far). Worst? Unlike the first two this seems random. Sometimes it works fine, sometimes it doesn’t. The worst kind of problem to pinpoint are these sporadic ones but I though it was worth mentioning like …
Missions. Yeah, sometimes the crew gets stuck somewhere but I know this is not new and, like the previous one, it is random.
And last, also a random one: Sometimes when you are not in full screen and alt-tab somewhere the game will go black and it is necessary to reload the previous save. The UI is still fully functional but nothing else is visible. I have not encountered this on full screen, just windowed mode. I think you’re moving to a new framework / code base (?) so maybe this won’t be an issue when you finally migrate.
Thank you again for the game, I hope some of those obs helped somewhat and the best of luck. I’ll keep trying to go over year 10 without losing half my colony ;) :o
Hello. Do you plan to update the game to use newer .net core? 3.1 is so old it's already being hidden by default by MS and seems almost impossible to set up the game on linux because of that too. I believer newer .net versions even allow to make the crossplatform
Hello. The game is being rewritten from scratch in the background. The rewritten version uses .NET 6.0 and should run natively on Linux. However, don't expect this version to be out before next year.
I love it! Question I have is, how can I both support you, and ensure I get a copy of the final release? Do I donate now, and then purchase later. Is there a plan to give people a copy who've donated a certain amount? Or maybe holding off on thinking this far ahead just yet?
Thank you. I hope to keep the final version free as well, but it depends on the amount of donations I get. Of course I wouldn't want to leave my generous donors hanging, but I also don't want anyone to donate for any other reason than from the goodness of their heart - I don't want donations to turn into pre-orders. So, I'm not promising anything in return if you do donate. If you're not comfortable with this, I'd suggest you wait.
I seem to be experiencing a lot of crash to desktops on 24.01.05. I'm running windows 11. I can't quite figure out what's causing it other than it appears to happen during autosaves and manual saves.
I'm sorry about that. Just today I've tracked down a bug that may be the culprit. There is going to be an update by the end of the month.
How do shuttles work? Mine just sits there (within 15 tiles of home base) "Waiting for crew" and won't go on a mission. It has full fuel. I'm trying to move it to be a mobile construction office to build the radio tower far away.
edit: okay, it finally left on the mission. it landed next to the intended radio tower location. the entrance to the shuttle and the entrance to the tower were not blocked. the game complained that there is no route. i have no idea what i'm supposed to do.
I can't tell what the problem is without seeing the situation. Mind hopping onto discord and showing a screenshot?
I have plenty of Air and Water, but my "air/water capacity of life support system" is bottoming out, and my colonists are dying.
How do I turn Air/Water into Air/Water supply?
edit: this comes up in a later quest. having this gated resulted in a lot of deaths. i would like this to become available once its needed, not after its been needed for a long time.
Sorry about that. The next update already plans to rework the early game unlocking to prevent this problem.
I would love to try this game. But may I ask for system requirements? I am not sure if my potato laptop can survive this. Its a 4th gen i5 with 8gb RAM.
It probably will work, although it may get sluggish in later parts of the game. But you should just give it a try and see for yourself - it is free after all. That's why there are no official minimum specs.
The new version 23.03.31 won't launch on Winodows 11 but the 22.12.20 works. Here are the logs,
C:\Users\xxx\Downloads\AlienHorizon_23_03_31\Release\netcoreapp3.1> dotnet.exe .\AlienHorizon.dll
Unhandled exception. System.DllNotFoundException: Unable to load DLL 'nvapi64.dll' or one of its dependencies: The specified module could not be found. (0x8007007E)
at System.Runtime.InteropServices.NativeLibrary.LoadFromPath(String libraryName, Boolean throwOnError)
at System.Runtime.InteropServices.NativeLibrary.Load(String libraryPath)
at AlienHorizon.Program.Main() in C:\Users\akher\OneDrive\Documents\Projects\NextFrontier\TheNextFrontier\Program.cs:line 22
Is there a way to get updates on the latest release of this game? I am new to itch.io and would appreciate your help.
The latest version is always available for download here. Currently it's 22.12.20. You can follow this page for updates to see when a new version comes out.
thank you very much
Hi,
Will this game become available on Steam?
Thank you
Hello. Yes, eventually.
Thank you - the game looks wonderful.
I love this game so far. I find it more enjoyable than Surviving Mars. In about the mid game when trying to finish the survival roadmap I seem to hit a consistent crash with bus routes. I try adding 2 buses to the same route and almost immediately after adding the second the game seems to consistently exit. Anything I can provide to help debug? This is blocking my ability to progress into later stages of the game.
I'm sorry about that. The best way you can help with debugging is to jump to the Discord server where we can communicate much easier. Or, if you don't want to, you can upload the crashlog (located in My Documents/My Games/Alien Horizon) somewhere and send a link here.
Will try and jump on discord when I get a chance to reproduce the issue during my off hours. Thanks.
Hi, i saw some videos and your game looks amazing. I try to play it on my PC but it doesnt work. I try download the .net runtime and then the game load up to the start menu, but when i try to change the screen or to start a game, it stop working and i get a message related to my GPU.
Hello. Sorry about that. Are you playing on a laptop with 2 GPUs? If so, try forcing the dedicated one on. If it doesn't help, maybe hop on Discord where I can help you much better.
We are back in business.
came across this Nov. 2021 video:
Alien Horizon by Nookrium
0x000007b error
Looks neat, thought of streaming it some but hit on a snag.
The exe prompts me to install .Net Core, which I'd downloaded, installed and have restarted my machine afterwards - The game still no go.
What am I doing wrong?
Win10 - 64bit machine.
Are you sure you downloaded the correct version? Should be .NET Core 3.1 x64 for desktop applications. There should be a direct link in the included installation instructions if you're not sure.
Yes, i've used the autolink that you have included on the exe.
I've halted my AV for the installation period and have restarted my system afterwards.
The link in the exe file is a bit vague (it's actually Windows that generates it, not the game). There's a more direct link in the installation instructions txt file. It leads here
It's now working.
For future ref I'll say that the autolink got me this file:
dotnet-runtime-3.1.26-win-x64.exe
While what the game needs to run is:
windowsdesktop-runtime-3.1.23-win-x64.exe
To whomever is reading this, note that the versions differ 3.1.26(wrong version) and 3.1.23(the needed one).
Cheers! :)
I was looking for a game like Earth Orbit Stations and found this gem. It's a really fun, punishing, thinking kind of builder game that you don't see much of anymore. It reminds me a bit of Frost Punk in that it's not a walk in the park and demands you to logically plan out your base while not wasting precious resources or time. Thanks for making it!
No ELF binary available ?
I'm wondering about the Linux native librarys in the Folder..
Sorry, I'm afraid I don't understand. Linux is currently not supported.
There appears to be Linux and Mac runtimes included. I'm currently trying to get it running nativly too. It runs under Wine, but a few issues with full screen mode. It should run if you install DotNet for Linux...maybe! and then "dotnet run AlienHorizon.exe" in the terminal.
My first video on YouTube from Alien Horizion had over 100 views in the first 5 days. I have a small channel with 117 subscribers so that's almost 100%. One of the best titles on my channel. Thanks and good job ^^
AltRon !
Alien Horizon - Play-Test # 1 - Ein neuer Horizont [Deutsch] - YouTube
That game is awesome already. The potential is there to become an excellent one.
Great game so far, thank you very much :)
The game seems to have a problem with my screen resolution. I have a 16:10 Monitor (1920x1200) and run full screen. When I try to click on the bottom row of buttons, the map is running away. For now I just switched off border panning but I wanted to mention this.
When I switch to 1920x1080, the display still seems to be 1200 high but the buttons move a bit up and I can reach them without panning. So the game seems to use two resolutions at once.
i love the game.. i love the style of the UI, it feels like serious work stuff not a game. And it adds to the vibe, It's really good and have immense potential, HOWEVER, my save is dead.. It crashes on load. WHY help
I'm sorry to hear about your save. Did anything out of thee ordinary happen during saving? Does the autosave work? Can you hop on the Discord server and send me the save, please?
quand jesai dinstaller le jeux a la place sa me telecharge un fichier avec tous les config mais pas le jeux comment faire?
I actually saw this game on GamerZakh also and I was very interested, I own way more than my share of this genre. This game is awesome, I can see this getting to be as big if not just as great as Surviving Mars. Actually I own that one too but I like this game better, there's way more information given in this game. I love the information blocks that gives the option of reading what each thing does or not. There are a few things missing in the tutorial but so far the tut is good (better than most) The only problem I had was that the game started in a window and everything was so small I had to get my reading glasses to see the menu to go fullscreen. I didn't find any bugs or have any problems. I can't wait to see some of the stuff on the roadmap. The graphics are a little clunky but not that bad. I will leave with this: game play is way too slow lol It took 4 minutes IRT to get the mine built at 3x speed. Someone should write a guide for this game soon. I;ve been going through all of the menu items and I still haven't figured out how to get water lol. Keep up the great work!
So the devs are aware, I found this game through a YouTube video by GamerZakh. I decided to download because of the free release. Thank you Purple Nebula for using this early distribution model so players can try the game out in the early stages. *Thumbs up*
Did you do it in linux ?
It invariably crashes when I try to create a new colony. I tried changing display resolution and also fiddling with colony parameters just to see if it changed anything, but it didn't.
I'll be watching to see if there is a stable release in the future ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Love this!
Best tutorial I've seen for a game like this by far.
UI/UX is, again, not just best-in-class but best I've seen for this type of game.
The survival/industry/production system is complex in a way that feels rich rather than overwhelming.
Only downside is that I was having some trouble with bugs that were making it hard to break into the mid game but that was before the latest version. Excited that when I came back to write this I see that a new version has released. Gonna try it now.
Piece of crap that crashes nonstop.
I'm sorry to hear that you're experiencing crashes. Mind joining the Discord server and sharing the crashlogs, so I can figure out what the problem is?
This is extremely promising. I wish that the early game would be a bit faster though and the ground can get a bit graphically too busy with a lot of slopes and elevation variation. Power and life support lines also desperately need to be able to cross roads, even once streets are unlocked since they don't entirely replace roads. I also had an hard crash when I would a truck beneath the ship that was assigned to 'office'. Clicking the go to workplace button on that truck caused the game to crash without any error messages. It seems that the truck appeared once I had acquired more trucks than the ship logistics section could handle.
Besides that feedback, I would highly recommend anyone remotely interested in the genre to give it a go.
1. i love this game already
2. reflections or someting with the edge of the see-able map and any structure seem to be glitching, sorta like how 3D works, but not
3. the overlays are broken
4. please continue working on this game, im writing this to notify you of any possibley unknow bugs/glitches
check the display settings it might be set to the wrong resolution. That is what happened to me once I set it right cleared up.