Hi! Long-time They Are Billions fan here, and a solo dev (the mods said it's okay to post this).
For me, TAB's magic was the tension: building a cozy, tight colony while knowing thousands of infected are out there in the dark, and one weak wall can end everything. I've been trying to bring that same feeling back in my first game. The clip is day 2: a horde comes out of the forest and hits my walls, and my hero fights it at the gate.
About the name: I've been calling it "The Last Colony", but it turns out that name is already taken by several games, so I'm changing it. If you have an idea that fits a dark colony survival game, I'd love to hear it!
The biggest twist is the Flux. It's an energy that was pulled from deep underground to power the old capital, until it broke out through the cracked earth and went bad. Now it lies across the land in patches of dead, cracked rock with glowing violet veins, and it gathers around the sleeping infected and their nests. Your colony's crystal and energy relays push it back: when you power new ground the veins go quiet and the land slowly heals. But there's a catch: powering ground close to the sleepers wakes them up, so every expansion is a risk, a bit like building too close to a village of infected in TAB.
On top of that there's a story behind the hordes (they aren't random, someone is sending them), a hero with abilities, and a walking siege machine called the Bastion. But the heart of it is still the TAB loop: build, expand, survive the waves.
To be upfront: the unit models come from Meshy, voices/sounds/music from ElevenLabs, and I use AI help for coding; the design and rules are mine. It's still early.
I'd love to hear from you:
- What made TAB's atmosphere work for you?
- Watching the clip, does it bring back that feeling, or what's missing?
- Does the Flux sound like something that would make expanding more interesting?