Aven Colony Preview – Refreshingly New City Builder

<p>Before <em>Aven Colony<&sol;em>&comma; I can&&num;8217&semi;t say that I had ever played a city builder game in which poison balls spewed from the mouths of aliens could destroy my city structures&period; But sure enough&comma; the pesky sandworms on Aven Prime kept me on my toes&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><em>Aven Colony <&sol;em>is a city builder strategy game developed by Mothership Entertainment and produced by Team17&period; The team consists of four developers who have worked on games like <em>Fable 2&comma; Star Wars&colon; The Old Republic<&sol;em>&comma; and <em>Metroid Prime 2 &amp&semi; 3<&sol;em>&period; Mothership made a promise to create fresh&comma; compelling game content&comma; and I strongly believe they succeeded with this one&period; Your goal is to build and sustain the first human settlements on the planet&comma; Aven Prime&period; The planet contains several vastly different biomes&comma; from deserts to jungles&comma; and each has its own unique gameplay&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>When <em>Aven Colony<&sol;em> loads&comma; it feels thrilling even before the playing starts&period; The main menu features brightly colored space animations and theme music comparable to adventure film scores&period; Right away&comma; I knew I was playing something special&period; The game recommends you start by playing two very short tutorial games&comma; called Holo-Sims&period; Then&comma; it&&num;8217&semi;s best to proceed through a couple campaign scenarios before attempting a sandbox expedition&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<figure id&equals;"attachment&lowbar;127176" aria-describedby&equals;"caption-attachment-127176" style&equals;"width&colon; 960px" class&equals;"wp-caption aligncenter"><img class&equals;"wp-image-127176" src&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;cdn&period;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2017&sol;07&sol;04030806&sol;Gameplay&lowbar;039&period;jpg" alt&equals;"Aven Colony&comma; Team17 Digital Ltd" width&equals;"960" height&equals;"540" &sol;><figcaption id&equals;"caption-attachment-127176" class&equals;"wp-caption-text">Aven Colony&comma; Team17 Digital Ltd<&sol;figcaption><&sol;figure>&NewLine;<p>In campaign mode&comma; most <em>Aven Colony<&sol;em> games start out with a few basic structures&period; These include solar panels for power&comma; somewhere for the first workers to live&comma; and construction drones&period; The drones use materials known as Nanites to build all of the structures needed for your settlement&period; Nanites can be hard to come by when starting a game&period; You can get them as rewards for meeting campaign objectives&comma; or you can trade crops for them through a slow-but-steady trading center&period; The most reliable way to ensure enough building materials early on is to mine for iron and copper&period; You can then build Nanite processors to turn the mined metals into building materials&period; This was usually the biggest bottleneck I&&num;8217&semi;d encounter in the game&period; However&comma; it never felt like I had to wait too long to collect enough materials to complete my next project&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>I&&num;8217&semi;ve played civilization-building games before that hit boring spots while waiting to reach the next objective&period; In campaign mode of <em>Aven Colony<&sol;em>&comma; there&&num;8217&semi;s never a boring moment&period; Usually&comma; I found myself managing about three objectives at a time&period; This kept me from facing that dreaded downtime of waiting for research to complete or the population to grow to a certain level&period; Instead&comma; while I built up my population for one objective&comma; I could also build farm facilities for another goal&period; Having multiple objectives at one time like this also kept my settlement resources balanced&period; The game would make sure I had enough housing and food to support my colony while growing the population&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<figure id&equals;"attachment&lowbar;127174" aria-describedby&equals;"caption-attachment-127174" style&equals;"width&colon; 960px" class&equals;"wp-caption aligncenter"><img class&equals;"wp-image-127174" src&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;cdn&period;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2017&sol;07&sol;04030508&sol;Gameplay&lowbar;002&period;jpg" alt&equals;"Aven Colony&comma; Team17 Digital Ltd" width&equals;"960" height&equals;"540" &sol;><figcaption id&equals;"caption-attachment-127174" class&equals;"wp-caption-text">Aven Colony&comma; Team17 Digital Ltd<&sol;figcaption><&sol;figure>&NewLine;<p>The map overlays in <em>Aven Colony<&sol;em> provide quick and easy visuals that aid in improving your colony&period; You can choose from 12 different overlays that provide visual data about your settlement&period; The example below is the Employment Overlay&period; This shows you where your workers live and where they work&period; This helps you determine where to place new residential properties and also provides data on commute conflicts&period; My colonists seemed to be the grumpiest about commute times&comma; but I understand&period; No one wants to have to travel a long way to work or deal with traffic jams&comma; even in space&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Other helpful overlays provide quick&comma; graphical information about crops&comma; crime&comma; air quality&comma; resources&comma; and more&period; The crops overlay shows which crop each farm building is producing&period; This makes it easy to see where you may have a surplus of a certain crop&period; It also makes it simple to find a summer crop and switch it over to something that will grow better in the winter&period; The air quality overlay shows where air quality is getting worse&comma; allowing you to add air filters to trouble areas of your colony before it becomes a problem&period; The resources overlay not only shows you where your current mines are located but points out potential resource areas outside of your settlement&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<figure id&equals;"attachment&lowbar;127178" aria-describedby&equals;"caption-attachment-127178" style&equals;"width&colon; 960px" class&equals;"wp-caption aligncenter"><img class&equals;"wp-image-127178" src&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;cdn&period;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2017&sol;07&sol;04030823&sol;Gameplay&lowbar;025&period;jpg" alt&equals;"Aven Colony&comma; Team17 Digital Ltd" width&equals;"960" height&equals;"540" &sol;><figcaption id&equals;"caption-attachment-127178" class&equals;"wp-caption-text">Aven Colony&comma; Team17 Digital Ltd<&sol;figcaption><&sol;figure>&NewLine;<p>An interesting aspect of <em>Aven Colony <&sol;em>is the ability to create highly-processed and enhanced foods for your colonists&period; You can harvest basic crops like barley and corn and use them as nature intended&period; In addition&comma; you can build a chemical plant and a mill to allow processing of crops&period; Using a chemical mill&comma; you can turn corn into corn syrup&period; The mill can be used to process corn syrup into candy&period; The candy has a bonus of increasing morale&comma; but it reduces health across the colony&period; Luckily&comma; the inventory menu lets you choose which manufactured products go into the general food supply&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Fans of city building games are sure to enjoy Mothership&&num;8217&semi;s twist on the classic genre&period; The stunning&comma; colorful art design and fast-paced gameplay make <em>Aven Colony <&sol;em>stand out from the crowd&period; The game will be available on Steam&comma; Xbox One&comma; and PS4 starting July 25&comma; 2017&period; Players can pre-order their copy at a discounted price and receive an exclusive sandbox map of an otherwise unavailable biome&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p style&equals;"text-align&colon; center"><strong>A PC preview copy of<em> Aven Colony<&sol;em> was provided by Team17 Digital Ltd for the purpose of this review<&sol;strong><&sol;p>&NewLine;