Code: Terraform

Code: Terraform is a programming and automation game in which the player is sent to a frozen alien world and must bring a base online by writing code. Rather than using visual or drag-and-drop programming, the game uses a text-based language modelled on Python, with an editor, console and documentation built into the game. Mining, power management, solar tracking and drone dispatch are all handled by scripts the player writes, and multiple scripts can run concurrently while the player plans other work.

Progression involves calibrating sensors, activating solar power and completing engineering contracts sent from Earth, which take the form of data processing tasks such as parsing signals and filtering datasets. Credits earned from contracts and shipped orders can be spent on machines, modular rovers and Pioneers, whose nav, sonar and drill modules can be swapped to suit a task. Ore is smelted into ingots and fabricated into parts, and machines are organised into three tiers: Mark I raises a thin atmosphere, Mark II moves towards breathable air, and Mark III requires fluid input and leads towards a terraformed state. Fluid networks for water, oil and geothermal steam are laid tile by tile, alongside power subnets and pipe overpasses, and infrastructure can be planned in a tile-based blueprint editor and constructed by a Pioneer fitted with a Constructor module. Drones are assembled from chassis, thrusters and pods, with flight scripts hauling ore, ferrying supplies and recovering stranded fleets, and shared library scripts allowing a single route to be reused across many drones.

The code editor includes syntax highlighting, autocomplete, signature help, rename refactoring, inline documentation, breakpoints, log points, conditional breakpoints and three step modes for debugging. A story is delivered entirely through in-game systems such as briefings, sensor data, encrypted transmissions and contract anomalies, with no cutscenes, and the developer describes the planet as responding to the player as terraforming progresses. There are no tutorials, only documentation and hints. A free demo is available.