Alien Horizon (Preview Alpha)

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• Announcements·4 Sept 2026Official

  Rewrite Devlog #19

  Hello! Welcome to the, uh... August instance of the devlog, which has been slightly delayed. Sorry about that. More information on why is at the end. Nothing catastrophic this time.Anyway, the devlog is supposed to show some of the new features that are available in the rewrite - the new completely rewritten version of Alien Horizon - as opposed to the alpha, which is available now.Public transportOf course public transport has been in the game since the alpha, but the visuals have gone through significant improvements. You can set each line to have a color which is visible on the map, the paths are nicely animated and you can even easily tell when two lines are going through the same area or sharing stations.Number of buses desired and actually assigned can also be seen in the line list along with number of stations. Once a desired number of buses is set, they are now assigned automatically, so even if you remove buses from one garage and add them to another, they will automatically reassign themselves to the lines. And because they no longer need to return to a garage to recharge, they will continue serving the line as long as needed. This works well with one of the features that has been present in the alpha, but that I'm sure not a lot of people have noticed - that buses that are bunched up along one line attempt to spread out by waiting at a station for a while in order to keep intervals consistent.Speaking of intervals, colonists now take them into account when deciding whether to use public transport. Gone are the times colonists waited for a bus for an hour when it was faster to just walk. And when so many colonists wait at a stop that they no longer fit into one bus, the interval they consider is lengthened to discourage them from using such overloaded lines. Also, when waiting too long, they may decide to walk instead.The UI for all vehicles has also been improved, showing all the information you may need, even speed, so that you can see the effect roads h...
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• Announcements·7 Aug 2026Official

  Playtest invitation

  As promised in the last devlog, the playtest is up.Please join the Discord or Stoat where organization is taking place. You will find more information there.
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• Announcements·31 Jul 2026Official

  Rewrite Devlog #18 and Playtest Date

  Hello and welcome to the July's edition of the rewrite devlog. Yes, it still is July, at least here. As was said in all other devlogs, these are supposed to show some of the new features of the upcoming new rewritten version of Alien Horizon, that's coming quite soon. In fact, if you're impatient, there's gonna be more information about the playtest that was promised in the last devlog at the end of this one.Today we're going to take a look at the weather system. In the alpha, weather just meant temperature and wind speed, but with the addition of water, it's so much more here.CloudsAs was mentioned in the previous devlog, there's cloud cover on the planet now. Clouds will affect how well your solar arrays work. Of course, since the game is called Alien Horizon, you can tilt the camera enough to actually see the horizon and that means the sky too, so I took the time to make a dynamic effect that shows what the clouds actually look like. Their speed depends on wind and they even cast shadows and interact with the sun during sunrise and sunset.Rain and SnowSince there's water on the planet, as was revealed in the very first devlog, there of course should be rain too. The effect is affected by rain intensity and wind speed and direction, making it possible to rain almost sideways.The terrain generator has been greatly improved, creating fewer tiny lakes and more rivers.When the temperature is below zero, it snows instead. You can see the water freezing in real time, which, as mentioned in the second devlog, allows colonists and vehicles to travel over it, but blocks your water pumps.Unfortunately, snow doesn't accumulate on the ground, but that's something I'd like to address in the future.Floods and droughtsBack when I first presented water, its simulation was rather rudimentary and thus its effects on gameplay had to be limited. But I've massively improved the simulation since then - every tile is physically correctly-ish simulated (there are some compromises in the ...
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• Announcements·26 Jun 2026Official

  Rewrite Devlog #17 and Playtest Announcement

  Summer heat is here and with it the June's devlog, showing off some of the new features in the so called "rewrite" - a new proper version of Alien Horizon that's getting close to release, planned by the end of summer (no promises, though).Today, we'll take a look at new UI features and the UI in general.GeneralHere's what the game's main UI looks now. I hope it's an improvement over the alpha, but the truth will come out once more people play it. Let's look at each individual part.NavigationThe lower left corner is the main navigation. Here you can access all the windows for managing your colony, like the build menu, exploration, objectives, research, laws or newly also the stasis window as was mentioned in one of the previous dev logs. Whenever no other window is selected, the colony resources window is shown instead (although if you feel it's taking up too much space, it can be minimized). There is no longer any distinction between colony and cargo ships resources as the transferring is now fully automatic.The build menu has received a massive overhaul. First of all, instead of having 16 categories, the structures have been divided into 4 easy to understand super categories (civic, industry, infrastructure and other), each with up to 6 subcategories. This should make it much easier to find where the structure you're looking for is. Planning mode, construction priority and also demolition mode have been integrated into the menu.The most visible change is that structures now have visible previews so the player can orient themself by the structure's visuals and not just a name. This also teaches them what the structure looks like, so that it's easier to identify in the colony. These previews are generated automatically, so if you ever add a modded structure, it's going to have this nice picture as well.The structure overview window on the right now shows much more information about the structure, for example showing all the recipes a factory can produce, the number o...
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• Announcements·29 May 2026Official

  Rewrite Devlog #16

  You're reading the May's devlog now, showing new features you can expect in the proper version of Alien Horizon that's being rewritten from scratch and is planned for the end of summer (no promises). Today we're gonna look at colonist behavior and healthcare.Friends and familyAs was mentioned in previous devlogs, colonists can become acquaintances and later friends whenever they meet in a building. Friends and family members care about each other, so their well-being affects the people around them. This means that if some colonists are not doing well, they're going to worsen the mood of their friends. This makes it important to ensure all colonists are doing well, or alternatively, make sure the ones who aren't don't meet the ones who are.Some players have been asking for a way to "deal with" retired colonists who aren't productive anymore, and while there isn't any direct way to get rid of them, I'm sure players will get creative and achieve this somehow. But there are now consequences to this: when a colonist dies, their friends and family members will grieve, which negatively affects them. How intensely and long depends on their relationship and how the colonist died - when their parent dies of old age, they get over it relatively quickly - it is the circle of life, after all - but less natural deaths like injuries or stress carry heavier penalty. And then there are preventable deaths, like suffocation and starvation - when their spouse dies of suffocation, a colonist may be completely paralyzed by grief for years.EmergenciesSpeaking of suffocation, colonists are now far better at reacting to life-threatening situations. When a building's life support shuts down for any reason, they immediately start looking for other places they can go to not suffocate. Same with dangerous temperatures. If there are no other buildings they can take shelter in (because the problem is colony-wide), they carry on with their duties, however. Eventually, I'd like to add a system to m...
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