Jujubee S.A., announced that they have a new title in the works due out in June of 2020 called Dark Moon. This is a survival, space simulator that’s played from an isometric perspective like a real-time strategy game. It’s a very interesting concept because you’re not only racing against time with limited resources and combustible personalities in your crew members, but you’re also facing off against the deadly rays from the sun.

Dark Moon is set in a sci-fi alternate history where Earth gets hit with devastating solar flares, knocking out the communication to the a moon base mining operation. The moon base loses its communications array, and then things turn deadly when the sun starts scorching and frying any and everything in its path.

Players are tasked with utilizing a mobile moon base crawler that can be used to setup temporary stations for supplies and mining. You’ll need to keep your limited number of crew fed and alive while trying to salvage equipment to build a communications tower to seek help from Earth.

The game compounds the tension by allowing players to encounter potential additions to their crew via pilots and other astronauts, cosmonauts, or aeronauts who have been stranded out in space as well. Some of these pilots, engineers, or crew members come from other countries and may hold hostilities toward you or other crew mates.

You can choose to take them in and make use of their skill set or you can boot them out and conserve resources. The real kicker is that depending on who you keep or who you kick out will determine whether the remaining crew will like or hate you for your actions, which could even result in a mutiny.

There’s a fine balance between strategizing how to get off the moon as well as playing diplomat with the various people aboard the crawler.

It reminds me a little bit of Frostpunk set in space. It’s a neat concept with a really dark atmosphere that could make Dark Moon an easy shoo-in for sleeper-hit success if it plays as well as the concept sounds.

You can wishlist the game right now by visiting the Steam store page or keep an eye out for additional trailers and news leading up to the June, 2020 release.