Mode 7 and Codebyfire’s The Colonists is a lo-fi strategy management game where you take a bunch of robots and attempt to rebuild society using the robots. This includes building new research facilities, new technologies, new food production, and housing.
The game keeps things simple as far as aesthetics are concerned. In fact, the game only clocks in at 265MB, so you won’t have to worry about setting aside tens of gigabytes worth of data just to install the game.
Your objective is to take the self-replicating robot colonists, and help them settle on the new planet after having escaped from Earth in a plan to live life like a human.
You’ll start with nothing but a few robots and a small spaceship. You’ll need to direct them across a habitable piece of land and construct transportation systems, roads, boats, and manufacturing structures, along with food and energy production, and expedition missions in order to expand your operations.
As you advance through the game you’ll earn skill points in order to advance your tech trees that span construction, mining, food production, transportation, military attack, military defense, trees, industry and science.
The game sports the ability to create settlements working at your own pace, or you can start a campaign where you compete against other AI colonies in a race to build up your settlement first. You’ll need to not only excel in research but also take your military might to the next level in order to level the competition.
If you were looking for a game similar to Settlers or Anno, but something that isn’t going to burn a hole through your CPU, The Colonists doesn’t seem like a bad way to go.
The Colonists is available as a DRM-free title right now over on the GOG.com store page for only $24.99. There’s a 10% off discount on the game right now and it will be available during the first week of release.
The only downside is that GOG.com has a habit of apologizing to SJW NPCs, and it really puts a foul stench on their reputation, so keep that in mind if you plan on purchasing a game from GOG.com.
Alternatively, you can pick up a DRM-laden version of the game from over on the Steam store as well.
