Maia

About This Game

Maia is a strange and hostile alien world, toxic to humans, yet lush with new life. Your mission is to colonise this poison eden, survive it's dangers and establish humanity's first foothold in the stars. Created by independent developer Simon Roth, Maia is a space colony simulation game about surviving and thriving on another world.

Build your Base

Burrow into Maia's mineral rich crust to build and manage a complex base that fulfills your colonist's needs. They'll need somewhere to sleep, somewhere to build and a steady supply of food, water and energy.

An Enormous Procedurally-Generated World

Twelve light years from earth, the planet Maia circles Tau Ceti. Its atmosphere is toxic, its surface is ravaged by solar flares, super storms, and meteor blasts and its unstable crust is constantly shifted by catastrophic earthquakes. Nevertheless, it is theoretically habitable. Explore Maia through a series of vast procedurally generated and fully simulated mission areas, each one several kilometres in size.

Challenge Yourself

In addition to the sandbox mode players can take on four specific missions, with more to come in updates. Deal with an influx of refugees from a stricken space station in Cassiopeia, survive the perpetual night of arctic winter in The Twilight Zone, study Maia's local ecosystem in SN1572 and begin to terraform the planet in the shadow of an active volcano in Stratospheric Sulphates.

Research and Learn from the Planet to Survive

Maia is a hard science fiction game based on real or extrapolated technology. Some of the colonist's tools have been brought with them, but others must be fabricated from what they can find. Once your base is up and running colonists can begin to study the native environment researching new ways to use the flora and fauna of Maia to their advantage.

Dangerous Atmosphere

Maia's atmosphere is toxic to humans, so to keep safe you'll need carefully manage the atmosphere around your base with well placed airlocks, atmosphere generators, heaters and air vents. Air flow and heat circulation are realistically simulated, emulating the deadly challenge of surviving on an alien world.

Advanced Colonists AI

In Maia you don't have direct control of your colonists, they operate on their own initiative, fulfilling their wants and needs. You'll need to take care of both their bodies and minds if you want any of them to survive. They are deeply simulated from their mental states, metabolisms, diseases, down to the sweat evaporating from their skin. They can learn new skills, form bonds and relationships, suggest changes to your base and even write poetry and music.

An Army of Robots

Colonising an alien world isn't something humanity can do alone, instead they've created robotic helpers to do the jobs they don't want to. The I.M.P. robot digs through Maia's crust and collects useful minerals, while the Utility Repair Robot takes care of all that routine maintenance humans can't be bothered with.

First Person Mode

Experience Maia through the eyes of your pet robots. Assume direct control and explore your base in first person, directly interacting with it by performing your robotic tasks. Become part of the world you've built.

Genetically Engineered Super Chickens

To survive, your colonists will need to create and manage new sources of food. Build hydroponics, raise livestock and eventually capture and domesticate the alien fauna. Unfortunately most of it tastes terrible.

Custom Engine

Maia runs on a custom game engine written exclusively for the game. This allows the game to use very little processing power to run its deep simulation across the many cores of modern CPUS.

Immersive Soundtrack

Maia's ambient soundtrack was recorded from real antique synthesisers onto tape giving it a rich and authentic science fiction feeling.

The Inspiration

Maia was inspired by games such as Dungeon Keeper, Theme Hospital and The Sims. It mixes strategy, management and construction with dark gallows humour about the many dangers of an alien world. Maia also draws from the retro future style of 1970s sci-fi.

To Come

• A full story driven campaign, several hours long.
  
• More rooms, and new base management systems.
  
• Multiple bases.
  
• Somewhat sassy computers.

Get Involved

One of the great things about early access is being able to have players follow along with the games creation. This immediate feedback is extremely valuable to the games development. You can see our updates and give us feedback on the game via Twitter or our Development Blog. If you need some help with getting started in the game, you can check out our guides, head over to the official wiki or sign up to the forum.