My name is Kaleb Wassa, and today I get to share ecoSYSTEMS! A passion project of mine that I've been working on extensively over the last few months.

At its core, ecoSYSTEMS is a sandbox city-builder and alternative history simulator. It’s also an exploration of how human civilization interacts with the natural world. Drawing heavily from my background studying environmental science, I wanted to build an experience that connects players to real-world ecology and the existential threats of our time. The game is designed to be highly flexible, giving you the strategic freedom to navigate the delicate balance between progress and preservation.

At its core, the climate simulation forces you to adapt. It reacts in real-time to carbon sources and sinks, deforestation, permafrost thaw, and sea level rise. You'll experience all of this across an incredible variety of custom worlds built in the Planet Lab—a sandbox feature that already offers immense flexibility:

• Terrain Generation Sliders: Sliders governing terrain, tectonic deformation, water coverage, and sea-level bias.

• Hydraulic Erosion & Watersheds: A deterministic flow-routing algorithm that carves river valleys, deposits alluvium in basins, and calculates drainage areas to establish local soil moisture and fertility baselines before you even place a settlement.

• Planet Size / Resolution Selectors: Settings that adjust preview and final generation grid resolution.

• Climate & Biome Sliders: Parameter controls that can be set to Earth-like baselines or pushed to extremes to produce mono-biome worlds such as a Snowball Earth or Desert World.

• 12-Month Climate Rail: A seasonal timeline slider and scrub rail that previews surface, temperature, and sea-ice changes across the annual cycle.

We have a lot of ground to cover before our Steam Early Access launch, and I'll be diving into more specific features in future updates. To wrap up today, I've put together a Q&A to answer some immediate questions. I can't wait to hear your feedback and work together with the community to shape ecoSYSTEMS into something special!

Q. What exactly is ecoSYSTEMS?

A: ecoSYSTEMS is an alternate history civilization and resilience strategy game. You start by shaping a plausible, living planet in the Planet Lab, and then guide humanity from the Ancient era through the Information era and beyond. The goal is to build a society that can survive the eras, seasonal climates, and eventually, the existential threats of our own making.

Q: What engine are you using to build this?

A: I am developing ecoSYSTEMS in the Godot engine, primarily using GDScript. Building a living globe required a lot of custom work with 3D surface tools, procedural mesh generation, and custom GLSL shaders. Using a flexible engine like Godot also allows me to multithread the game for performance gains. Something I intend to further focus on over the course of early access.

Q: Is this a traditional city builder where I just zone and paint a map?

A: Not entirely. You don't micromanage individual houses. Instead, you place anchored buildings like Town Halls, Ports, and Factories and connect them with dedicated service links. The residential and commercial sprawl then grows organically based on your infrastructure, topography, and logistical bandwidth.

Q: Are there rival nations, or is it just me versus nature?

A: Both. Internally, you have to manage political factions that evolve over time (like Unionists, Technocrats, or Ecologists). If you ignore their needs or fail to mitigate disasters, they will strike, riot, or even trigger a civil war. Warfare isn't about moving individual units; it is a brutal test of macro-logistics, where you weaponize terrain and push frontlines by out-supplying your enemy.

Q: Will there be multiplayer?

A: Eventually. You and other players will control sovereign nations on the same shared planet. You can link your logistics grids to trade resources and sign binding climate agreements. However, because you share the same atmosphere, if your ally burns too much coal to boost their industry it may produce acid rain in your territory. This type of gameplay unlocks a huge range of possibilities and is something that will be iterated on. It will not be available as part of the initial early access launch and will come in a later update.

Q: How frequently will the game be updated?

A: You can expect major content updates on a monthly basis, alongside weekly patches for standard bug fixes. If any nasty, game-breaking bugs pop up, I’ll push out hotfixes immediately as needed to keep things running smoothly.

Q: Is there a roadmap for future updates?

A: It is coming very soon! Right now, my immediate priorities are defining the first playable settlement loop, validating the campaign map territory controls, and adding shipping infrastructure. I'll be sharing a comprehensive roadmap outlining all of this and the early access journey in the coming weeks.