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Posted by ariaalam 5 hours ago

Show HN: I created a Mars colony RPG based on Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars books(underhillgame.com)
I built a desktop Mars colony survival game called Underhill, in homage to Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars trilogy. Land on Mars, build solar panels and greenhouses, and try not to pass out during dust storms. Eventually your colonists split into factions: Greens who want to terraform and Reds who want to preserve Mars.

There’s Chill Mode for players that just want to build & hang, and Conflict Mode that introduces the Red v. Green factions. Reds sabotage, the terrain slowly turns green as the world gets more terraformed.

Feedback welcome, especially on performance and gameplay!

102 points | 43 comments
saltwatercowboy 2 hours ago|
This is so cool. How are you going to simulate Michel's longing for Provence? Seriously though I adore the trilogy. I started a Mars storymapping project which incorporated Underhill, Senzeni Na, the Moholes etc. a little while back too:

https://saltwatercowboy.github.io/marsinplace/

ch4s3 2 hours ago|
It’s BYO longing for Provence.
AnotherGoodName 3 hours ago||
Terraforming Mars is a board game that heavily references these novels which i highly recommend.
baq 2 hours ago|
It’s great but really needs the expansions, don’t play without
pmontra 4 hours ago||
I visited the site on my Android phone with Firefox. It loads and the UI fits the screen, however it seems slow. Words appear at 3 or 4 characters at a time, then there is a pause, then another 3 or 4 characters. Some music when characters appear, then it stops, then it starts again. I muted it soon.

It looks nice, so I hope to give it a try from my laptop. The Mars trilogy was a great read. When I saw the title of this Show HN I said, oh wow!

By the way, dust storms could be a plot device but are they really that bad with so low air pressure?

ariaalam 3 hours ago|
Thanks for giving it a click! Let me know how it goes on desktop. Actively trying to improve the phone experience now...
sointeresting 3 hours ago||
Loud music warning for those wearing headphones.
michaelteter 2 hours ago|
You weren't exaggerating! I didn't even have headphones on, and it scared the sh*t out of me when I clicked on the little man.
Teckla 2 hours ago||
The music was so loud from my monitor's speakers that I nearly jumped out of my skin and rushed to close it, and my volume isn't even turned up much!
magicmicah85 3 hours ago||
Played for a bit, liked the aesthetics so I bookmarked it to come back to it later and discovered a bug. On mac/chrome, I hit CMD + D to bookmark. By doing so, I setup some kind of autowalk bug where I kept walking to the right. I couldn't stop myself from walking, even pressing WAS temporarily stopped me but as soon as I let go, I kept walking right.
ariaalam 3 hours ago|
Thanks for this, I'll address it now.
captn3m0 3 hours ago||
Got power water and o2 but can’t seem to scroll the list of items to build for food on Firefox/iOS (should also be Safari/iOS) since it selects on tap before the scroll.
ariaalam 3 hours ago|
Another person just mentioned this to me, looking into it.
3eb7988a1663 1 hour ago||
I must have missed something because my HP keeps ticking down until I pass out and get warped back to the command center. Eating food and resting do not seem to change the situation.
personjerry 1 hour ago||
Had 1000 of each resource, lots of income, landing pads and habitats, but never got more colonists?
emaro 1 hour ago|
Same, I'm stuck at 18 inhabitants.
personjerry 1 hour ago||
I'm stuck at 0 lol
mkl 1 hour ago||
Do you have permission from the publisher for an adaptation? If not, you're taking a legal risk basing it off the books.
cantalopes 1 hour ago|
It's based on it, it's not an adaptation.

Also, this would very well fit within fair use

stevage 51 minutes ago||
That does not match my understanding of fair use at all.
xcf_seetan 3 hours ago|
I am on Firefox and it does nothing, no movement, just flashing resource monitors with zero values...
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