Space station sim Starmancer arrives August 5

At the Future Games Show we got another look at Starmancer, the space station sim being published by Chucklefish. You're an AI given control of an entire station and all its crew, customizing rooms and making sure there's enough food for all your colonists. It's all very pixel-chunky and everything snaps together or falls into place in a way that looks real satisfying.

But that doesn't mean this is Stardew Valley in space. Starmancer has a sinister undertone. You're encouraged to fill rooms with "cheerful paintings to remind the colonists how friendly and relatable you are, and motivational posters to let them know how much you value their productivity." As well as space ports and laboratories you can build "incubators for mysterious eggs". Your station might get invaded by pirates, or space zombies. And you've got the option of obeying your protocols, or going rogue.

Starmancer will be available in Early Access from August 5 on Steam.

Jody's first computer was a Commodore 64, so he remembers having to use a code wheel to play Pool of Radiance. A former music journalist who interviewed everyone from Giorgio Moroder to Trent Reznor, Jody also co-hosted Australia's first radio show about videogames, Zed Games. He's written for Rock Paper Shotgun, The Big Issue, GamesRadar, Zam, Glixel, Five Out of Ten Magazine, and Playboy.com, whose cheques with the bunny logo made for fun conversations at the bank. Jody's first article for PC Gamer was about the audio of Alien Isolation, published in 2015, and since then he's written about why Silent Hill belongs on PC, why Recettear: An Item Shop's Tale is the best fantasy shopkeeper tycoon game, and how weird Lost Ark can get. Jody edited PC Gamer Indie from 2017 to 2018, and he eventually lived up to his promise to play every Warhammer videogame.