Aven Colony

Lore & Background

The game is set on Aven Prime, an alien planet light-years from Earth, where the player oversees construction, resource management, and the well-being of colonists. The colony must be built from scratch, with additional colonists arriving over time. Buildings range from simple tents to skyscrapers and a space elevator, serving functions such as oxygen creation, food cultivation, resource mining, and defense. Flying drones handle construction and maintenance, while colonists move on foot or in hover cars. A day-night cycle affects gameplay: at night, everything freezes, food stops growing, and solar panels operate at 50% efficiency. Environmental hazards include storms, dust devils, toxic gas, and shard storms. An alien entity called 'the creep' grows over buildings, but drones can remove it. Other threats include plague spores, hovering guardians, and cultist airships, which can be countered with defensive structures. Research improves crop varieties, and a morale system influenced by food, housing, employment, crime, and social policies can lead to elections where citizens may remove the player if morale is too low. Ancient alien artifacts can be discovered, and sub-colonies of four types can be built in the surrounding area.

Reader's Guide

Aven Colony offers two main game modes: Campaign Mode, with multiple missions and objectives, and Sandbox Mode, where players set initial conditions and build freely with no specific goals. The game features twelve menus providing information on citizens, employment, commute, happiness, crime, resources, electricity, water, air, crops, structures, and drones. Speed can be adjusted up to eight times normal, and the game can be paused. Three camera modes—surveillance, satellite, and overworld map—offer different views. Development took two and a half years. Post-release updates added content: 'Content drop one' (August 31, 2017) introduced 11 new buildings, a sandbox map called Serpent Isle, and a hover car transport system. 'Content drop two: The Expedition Update' (December 5, 2017) focused on sub-colony expansion, adding four remote settlement types, the colony terminal, ark vessels, a two-tier expedition center, an upgraded combat ship, camera improvements, a new satellite camera mode, an improved overworld map showing incoming threats, and a new enemy faction, 'The Cult of the Seterdari.' The game received a Metacritic score of 73 out of 100, with Polygon giving it a 5 out of 10.

Did You Know?

• The beta was released on September 8, 2016 on Itch.io.
• A physical boxed version was available from August 1, 2017.
• The first major update added a space elevator and a decontamination unit.
• The second major update introduced 'The Cult of the Seterdari' as a new enemy.

Core Gameplay & Colony Management

Aven Colony casts the player as a colonial administrator establishing a human settlement on Aven Prime, a distant alien world. The colony starts from nothing, with additional colonists arriving gradually over time. Players oversee construction, resource flow, and population welfare through twelve informational panels tracking citizens, employment, commute, happiness, crime, resources, electricity, water, air, crops, structures, and drones.

Flying drones handle building, upgrading, recycling, and general colony management, while colonists travel on foot or in Hover cars. The built environment ranges from modest tent-like dwellings to skyscrapers and a space elevator, serving purposes from oxygen generation and food cultivation to mining, defense, and exploration. A day-and-night cycle adds urgency: at night the world freezes, food stops growing, and solar panels drop to half output. Hostile weather—storms, dust devils, toxic gas, shard storms—further tests the settlement. A morale system weighs food, housing, employment, crime, and player-set social policies; if satisfaction falls too low, citizens can sack the player in regular elections. Game speed reaches eight times normal, and three camera modes—surveillance, satellite, and overworld map—let players survey their domain.

Development & Post-Launch Evolution

Aven Colony was developed by Mothership Entertainment and published by Team17 over a two-and-a-half-year period. The beta launched on September 8, 2016, on Itch.io, and the full game followed on July 25, 2017, for Steam, Itch.io, Xbox One, and PlayStation 4, with a physical boxed edition arriving August 1, 2017.

Post-release, the team shipped smaller performance and bug-fix patches between two major content drops. The first, hitting PC on August 31, 2017, added eleven new buildings (including a space elevator, a decontamination unit, and decorative structures), a new sandbox map called Serpent Isle, and a Hover car transport system. Consoles received it on December 19, 2017. The second, "The Expedition Update," arrived on PC on December 5, 2017, and focused on outward expansion: four types of remote sub-colony, the colony terminal building, Ark vessels for constructing settlements, a two-tier Expedition centre, and an upgraded combat ship. Camera transitions were smoothed, a satellite camera mode was added, and the overworld map now previews incoming threats. A new enemy, the Cult of the Seterdari, attacks by airship, and water visuals received a refresh.

Alien Threats & Environmental Challenges

Surviving on Aven Prime is never straightforward. The planet's environment throws constant obstacles at the colony: storms, dust devils, toxic gas, and shard storms all batter the settlement. Beyond these natural hazards, the player faces a biological menace called "the creep"—an alien growth that spreads tentacles over buildings, slowly consuming them. Specialized drones can be deployed to strip the creep away and free affected structures.

The game also introduces a roster of hostile alien forces. Plague spores drift through the atmosphere, hovering guardians patrol the skies, and the Cult of the Seterdari launches airship raids. Players must build defensive structures to repel these attacks. Research is vital for long-term survival: advancing scientific knowledge unlocks improvements to the more than a dozen crop varieties, ensuring food security even as the night cycle halts growth. As the colony expands, ancient alien artefacts can be discovered, hinting at a prior civilization on this world. The ability to establish sub-colonies—four distinct types around the main settlement—gives players room to spread their influence and ease the pressure on a single growing city.

Reception & Genre Context

Aven Colony launched to a moderately positive reception, earning a Metacritic score of 73 out of 100, though Polygon was less generous, awarding it a 5 out of 10. The title sits squarely in the city-building strategy genre, sharing DNA with Planetbase, Surviving Mars, and the broader SimCity lineage. Its premise—overseeing the colonisation of an alien world from scratch—places it in the space-settlement tradition, yet the day-and-night freeze cycle, drone-based construction, and a political morale system with elections set it apart from peers.

Two primary game modes cater to different playstyles. Campaign Mode strings together missions with specific objectives, offering a structured narrative around colonising Aven Prime. Sandbox Mode lets players set initial conditions and then build an open-ended colony with no prescribed goals. The emphasis on managing twelve distinct panels—covering everything from commute to crime—combined with game speeds up to eight times normal, reflects a design that values deep micromanagement alongside the satisfaction of watching a complex system run at scale. For genre fans, Aven Colony delivers a dense, systems-driven experience where every choice, from crop research to social policy, ripples through the colony's survival.