A sci-fi horror trope I quite enjoy is arboretums that provide oxygen to ships or structures, both because it’s a nifty (if spurious?) idea, and because I like the concept of people who’ve only seen iron bulkheads for months staring wistfully at small trees. I think Alex Garland’s criminally underrated Sunshine did it. Kenny Lentil’s Biological Shock did it. Dead Space too. The derelict ark you’ll be scavenging and surviving in Dandelion Void also has plants, but the caveat is that the plants can move. The other caveat is that the plants are bastards.
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This one’s a single-player bad place explorer ’em up where you play as a stranded astronaut, squirreling away supplies and making shelters for periodic life support shorts, crafting weapons, and traversing dangerous junglefied environs, while also trying to keep your morale up. Among the game’s features is a novel ‘asphyxiation or treats’ system, where you’ll pry open sealed doors, not knowing if there’s valuable supplies or just a horrible bit of space on the other side. More features! More!
- Cut through jungle corridors in search of crafting supplies, exotic weapons, and rare decorations.
- Pry open long sealed bulkhead doors — just pray the void of interstellar space isn’t waiting for you on the other side.
- Patch up rotted spacesuits, lead lined radiation gear, and other protective garments to traverse dangerous new areas.
- Stockpile for the next cold snap; life support is on the fritz after centuries of neglect, and you can never be sure when it might fail… for days or even months at a time.
- The jungle is alive, and extremely hostile. Will you chance a run through the serrated tendrils of crawling plant life, or barricade up and hide somewhere safe?
Dev team Manzanita Interactive have roots in the Project Zomboid modding community, and they say they’ve carried this spirit of customisation forward. As such, the game will ship with a custom map editor and its Lua API. “A game made by modders, for modders, from modders”. I might have added that last bit. Release date is still TBA. Here’s tipper-offer Ewan Wilson on plant horror in the meantime.
