Realistic space colonization game - 4 months on

I started working on a realistic space colonization game 4 months ago, as I really wanted to 'play' the adventure of the first settlers on the Moon or Mars, and I found all existing games too futuristic.

After 4 months working on it as a side project, I now have a decently working and decently looking prototype. So I am now moving to the next step, preparing for a Kickstarter campaign. Feel free to subscribe if you are interested and want to show your support.

One positive surprise was how quickly I could pick modelling in Blender. This is an excellent 3D modelling software with a huge amount of tutorials online, and some very good free resources, especially textures. I even made my first try at modelling human shapes, something that I was very afraid of)

There are three main challenges going forward:

• Building all the features of a simulation game. This is hardcore complex programming, which probably explains why there are relatively few simulation games. Nothing impossible here, it will just need a lot of grind
• Making the game robust enough in complex situations. I expect a lot of debugging to reach a level where the game is really enjoyable. One key will be to design the game engine to be 'fail-safe'. This means that if something fails somewhere, it should not block the rest of the game, and there should be any time a manual way out. E.g. if a vehicle gets stuck between buildings, there should be a way to get it out of this narrow place.
• promoting the game. I am spending a lot of time getting into space enthusiasts cycles, something I actually enjoy and which gives me a lot of good ideas. Still, it is a lot of work to get the number of followers that make a game viable. To give an idea, I need around 100 people at least (ideally 1000) to subscribe to the Kickstarter campaign for the project to proceed to the next steps.

If you are interested in the project, you can follow the Twitter account, the subreddit, and subscribe to the Newsletter.