District Null
WatchlistWeb browser, Linux, PC (Microsoft Windows), Mac — Simulator, Strategy
District Null is a cyberpunk city-building simulation set on the colony planet AZ884, a world almost twice the size of Earth. Its northern side lies under a thick blanket of smog, while the unexplored region of Cibola waits in the south. On the General's orders, the player founds a district that is connected to the other territories by a highway.
The player lays roads, zones residential, commercial and industrial areas and watches the city grow house by house. Construction sites have real build times, all the way up to plateaus and skyscrapers. Traffic with commuters, traffic lights and highway interchanges, the power grid with fusion plants, thermal plants and energy relays, as well as fire services, ambulances and police are simulated at the same time. Venues such as a cinema, a stadium, a casino and a concert hall each have their own programme, visitors and income.
A research lab and a university unlock new technology and train skilled workers. Creatures like a giant worm, pterosaurs and slime men attack the city and are fought with defense units and ships from a weapons factory. The colony's long-term goal is drilling through the planet's core.
Story
The year is 2438. After nineteen years of planning, the Colonial Authority is ready to settle AZ884, a planet almost twice the size of Earth and packed with resources: kryptonite in open crystal fields, glowing spice drifting in a blue lava river, pig iron in a cliff face kilometres high. Yet life down there is barely possible. The purple north lies under a toxic blanket of sulfur, methane and chlorine gas, acid rain falls, and only a handful of settlements are clinging on.
Your story begins in the command center of a colony ship high above the planet. The General briefs the crew and hands you the job: found the new district in the north. Bit, a small support robot, version 17.8.6, is assigned to your side, and together you dive through the clouds to the start zone below the great stone wall.
As the new District Lord you build a city out of nothing, fight the smog, mine the riches of the planet and defend what you have built. Prove yourself and the General will put you in charge of the giant drill project. And far to the south, the green and still unexplored half of AZ884, called Cibola, is waiting.