Before we finally get down to finishing the long-awaited Galaxies DLC, we're serving you one last polish update today. And it's definitely the last tidy-up before we can manage entire galaxies. You wouldn't believe how happy we are about it ( as they say in German ). But as you can see, some important and fundamental things are being straightened out here.

As always, please let us know what you think of all this and don't spare us your ideas and suggestions. It's great that you've all stuck with us and Imagine Earth for so long. Oh, and as a small indie studio, it can't be said often enough. If you haven't written a review yet, you should definitely do it, it helps our game tremendously.

But now have fun with Update 1.17!, Jens & Martin


Finally you can choose between voice output, radio noises or complete silence. I personally can forgive the professor for speaking so strangely slowly, especially since the dubbing was so expensive ;D. But voice acting is basically a matter of taste and many people prefer to read and listen to music, especially if they don't understand English.


We have built a tutorial into the game that allows you to freely set the time faster and slower, because we have noticed that many people get bored in the game before they realize what extensive control they have over the game speed.


You can now reset the campaign completely. Of course, you will lose all your progress and savegames, but it's worth the chance to start from scratch!


We have improved the abilities of the security district because some of you found it too superfluous. It no longer creates a negative atmosphere and protects surrounding warehouses from pirate looting. Martin also felt the need to formulate the description of the building in a more positive way ;D


There is now such a button in the competitive and endless game, so that you can quickly colonize a planet without a lot of configuration work.


We have limited the basic supply of item-generating buildings to a maximum of 5, because we have noticed that sometimes a lot of superfluous items are generated, which players are annoyed to have to sell. Although this is an okay extra income, it somehow doesn't make sense for the game experience.


When the mission is completed, the enthusiastic success music no longer comes too late, but in time with the dialog and the fireworks. We have optimized the transition of the background music, previously when a threat occurred, the atmosphere seemed to be interrupted and always started again when the danger was over. We've also made sure that the music in the campaign menu is continuous and doesn't constantly restart between planets and galaxies.


Mood for gifts now improves immediately, sometimes the context was not clear.


When you are informed about disasters in the message panel, you can now click directly on the message to jump to the event.


It has never bothered us, but we have received a lot of feedback about it: When you click on buildings, the information no longer hangs out of the screen. A few modifications make it possible and the camera also pans a little when you click on a building too close to the edge.



Fixed: When taking rare resources from a supply capsule on planet EDORA, the number of rare resources available for sale decreases and can go negative.


Fixed: The landing sequences of the other factions are also skipped on this planet
Fixed: The goal "Make fire with the pyramid" stops too many mission hints if you don't fulfill it.


Fixed: With 2 new building types, the tech panel opens automatically, but the buildings are not highlighted.
Fixed: Leen gives us the financial district, builds it next to him, but you never realize that, he has to get a mission icon.


Workshop animation when crafting works again
If you go to the stock screen with a tool on the cursor, for example, the sell option is not available
Item Trader never has room to buy anything
City Energy Shield disappears when leveling up and is not centered


Fixed rare error in Rounos mission, where Leen could not land on the planet
Fixed exception related to parallel access to sounds
Fixed exception related to movement of units


Fixed bug that allowed to apply world congress results multiple times (thanks HenryG123789!)


Removed outdated privacy button
Introduced opt-in for crash & error reporting

We are excited to announce that we are supporting WDC, Whale and Dolphin Conservation for World Ocean Day!
The WDC World Ocean Day Sale starts today and runs until 15th June, 10am PDT 2024, and you can save a fin-tastic 55% off Imagine Earth. We will also donate 20% of our net profits to WDC to support their conservation work.*


WDC, Whale and Dolphin conservation is the leading global charity dedicated to the protection and conservation of whales and dolphins.
Their expert-led teams in the UK, Europe, the Americas, and Australasia work across the whole spectrum of threats, from climate breakdown to accidental entanglements in fishing gear. They bring together, and work hand-in-hand with, businesses, philanthropists, scientists, NGOs, governments and grassroots communities to find solutions to the problems faced by whales and dolphins.
Their aim is to reverse the global decline in whale and dolphin populations by creating safe seas for these majestic creatures.
Entanglement in fishing gear, or ‘bycatch’ as it’s known, is the biggest threat whales and dolphins face. Many hundreds of thousands die in nets or get tangled up in fishing gear every year. As air-breathing mammals like us, when they get trapped in a net, panic can take over and they can sustain terrible injuries before either escaping, or suffocating. It is a massive problem and so WDC are working on some innovative solutions. 


WDC have been working across the globe to protect whales, dolphins and porpoises from dying in fishing gear:

• They’re collaborating with creel fishers in Scotland to trial new types of fishing gear to reduce entanglements of humpback and minke whales.
  
• They’re working with colleagues and partner organisations in the Central Baltic Sea to develop a recovery plan for a critically endangered group of Baltic harbour porpoises.
  
• On the west coast of the United States, critically endangered North Atlantic right whales are facing extinction. Entanglement is a massive threat to their survival, and WDC have been working with fishers to trial alternative gear types.

The headline says it all. After Imagine Earth came into Early Access 2014 it’s now today finally available for Mac players. We hope it runs without any unwanted surprises, please try it and let us know what you experience.



Maybe we have some funny record in game development in terms of time spending again ;D.. Of course I wanted to write an epic history for this special moment about the weirdly long development odyssey but to be honest it's far from over…




ready to be released as far as the game is on all platforms. Also tomorrow Imagine Earth will be landing on Switch and Playstation!
Well ...it's still uploading but i don't have time for that. I'll fire out the news right now ;)



we made for our climate crisis city builder survival thriller!
Have good rest of the day! Where ever you are on this little planet.

Greatings,
Jens & Martin

The game is also part of the Earth Appreciation Fest starting at 7pm. You'll get 30% off & 10% are donated all week long. You'll notice the banner on top of Imagine Earth's store page as soon as it kicked off later today.




We document our efforts to generate real world impact with this game project in the annual impact report. Check out what we achieved last year.


Also big news for us: Imagine Earth will release on May 9 for Mac on Steam, {LINK REMOVED}Switch , {LINK REMOVED}Playstation 4 / 5. Wishlist now!

Dear colony managers, we have continued to improve the global management system, but have also found and ironed out a few bugs.

When characters speak, the voice output is sometimes missing because we have added new content to the game since the dubbing. The replacement sounds no longer sound like talking backwards, which irritated many people. Instead, they sound like real radio interference.



We've also added a fancy holographic projection effect. When characters radio in and out.

Damaged and destroyed buildings now emit a rain of components that have been loosened by the explosion. I don't know if anyone noticed, but they were rocks ;D



You can now only cancel item processes with a quick right-click, so that you don't accidentally deactivate them when moving the camera.

Descriptions of buildings are now displayed in the bookmark panel. A planet icon is now displayed outside the construction area.

• Warehouse Auto-Harvest remains off when you move a building or build new ones.
  
• Visualizing pause play time more clearly
  
• A guide to user interface, controls and handling. Big thanks to MB for writing a detailed explanation of the interface and all its elements!

• Merchant pays more for landing permit than he takes
  
• Satellite Hub: Positioning of the satellite
  
• Upgrades are shown in tool ring of foreign cities
  
• Multi-talent achievement does not work
  
• Generated planets have slums
  
• Fish trawlers "being flooded"
  
• Wrong text for explanation of "Indoctrination"
  
• Typo: "Idea bomb" instead of "Ideon bomb"
  
• Tuto landing cutscene broken
  
• Bangka Island cannot be taken over
  
• Explosions from last game no longer stay on the planet after loading a savegame
  
• Mission briefing in pause screen when message is locked
  
• Game rarely hangs in the challenge menu
  
• Error in temperature calculation

• Fixed Nootila faction not having audio voices in the faction selection for a new game
  
• Fixed trade panel speakers moving their mouth without actually speaking

• Fixed reduced animation quality of camera following landing and starting ships.
  
• Fixed missing Japanese translations in voting screen
  
• Re-added missing glow on atmosphere entry of city capsules

A lot has been going on behind the scenes in the last few months, we've been working hard on console versions of the game, constantly improving it in many details and carefully fine-tuning proven features. At the end of this update post, there's also a preview of new features that we plan to deliver with the next versions and DLCs in the first half of this year.


If the world is on the brink of a climate catastrophe, this is now also reflected in an unhealthy coloration of the oceans.




The reduction in fertility due to soil pollution and harmful environmental influences is visualized even more clearly by the change in soil texture.

What you can also see in this picture are piles of garbage that players can recycle to earn money. These will play a major role in another new game mode called Transformation. Here you are presented with a planet that is already built up with a civilization that is unfortunately already threatening to tip over into a climate catastrophe. You have to try to rebuild it in such a way that it lasts and climate change is stopped.




You can now only demolish neighborhoods if you still have enough living space for the population in other parts of the city. This sharpens the perception that these are people and that their lives are something worth protecting. In inhabited districts, the demolition option is now called relocation and can only be triggered if you have built enough modern apartments for your residents to move to.



This will also be of great importance in the Transformation game mode, where you will find outdated and dilapidated slums with little space for people and high energy costs and pollution.




To be able to start the campaign from scratch without having to create a new profile, there is now a new Reset Campaign button.




There are a number of new space backgrounds for the new Open Space game mode, as you start in a completely new, procedurally generated galaxy. Although this game mode will be released as DLC, the Competitive and Endless game modes will also benefit from this with fancy new start screens.

• New more open look for the selection ring
  
• New info box style
  
• Prices for tech & research are now fixed instead of being dependent on trade on planets
  
• Population loss is no longer so blatant and fast when the mood is very bad
  
• City Center now only has living space for 50,000 colonists
  
• AI opponents no longer land right next to each other at the start of the game
  
• Xrathul: Damage to the ship also reduces resource hunger before departure
  
• In challenge mode, the ranking on the current challenge planet is now displayed instead of the eternally identical mission description.
  
• Automatic savegame name also shows last activated quest
  
• Back button no longer triggered by right mouse button
  
• No more icons in the pause screen
  
• Lousy performance of fireworks and GameOver explosions improved

We noticed the boats recently because we still had 3D models that really looked almost 10 years old, now they are adapted to the modern style of the game.

• Right stick not only jumps to cities but also to events
  
• Show left shoulder button icon directly on research button if stock trading is not yet available
  
• Tab symbol is no longer displayed for Cities

For the Open Space DLC, we have been building extensions for some time that can be unlocked so that they are automatically added to every new city center. The whole thing works like a long-term meta-game with which you can improve the working conditions and technical progress in your colonies mission by mission.

• Trader landing animation hangs
  
• Help dialog hangs over the store menu in the campaign
  
• Streets are faded out too early
  
• Colony value is wrong directly after loading a savegame
  
• No more congress invitations after mission end
  
• Journal hotkey flicker

The new game mechanic, which prevents the demolition and replacement of districts if there is not enough free living space for the population, has unfortunately led to problems, as population growth is often too fast.
We have therefore removed this aspect for the time being and will bring it back in a modified form as part of the next update.

• Fixed "demolition" still being called "resettle" for districts
  
• Fixed city centers still having high tax revenue and resource consumption although population was halved with the update

• Fixed unlimited tech licenses provided by supply capsules
  
• Fixed error in editor when trying to use functions without having the related high-tech constructs

• Fixed missing ground texture for native camps
  
• Fixed icons hidden within fires and their smoke particles
  
• Fixed start animations of traders sometime not being shown
  
• Fixed right click no longer closing in-game panels like research
  
• Fixed active tool (e.g. repair) blocking game from ending
  
• Fixed error when starting another planet after leaving a planet that had fires
  
• Changed mixed colors of trader and native storage to a single color
  
• Make sure that players see landing animation for other factions arriving on the planet in most of the missions

• Fixed scanner and other items not being usable anymore
  
• Fixed music not working anymore after setting the volume to 0 for some time

• Removed unwanted spoiler of city extensions that also broke the competition gameplay balance.

The Open Space DLC is in production and will be released in Q2 2024. Here are all the details.

• Fixed merchant sometime not arriving at all, when a single spaceport is blocked by other traders. E.g. this lead to a quest not being started in the Joma mission
  
• Fixed birds sometimes flying through mountains or buildings
  
• Fixed crash related to birds
  
• Fixed incorrect number of competitors displayed for workshop planets
  
• Fixed dynamic resolution now working anymore, related to problem with linux version

Fixed roads fading out too early.

From now on you can watch birds in Imagine Earth. Soon, more species will surely be sighted. And then we also assign them a central role in the ecosystem or global simulation of our planet. I'm still not sure if they are the right size or if it's a pity that you never get them really close in front of your lens. For example, it was quite a challenge to take this one snapshot for the update.




In the editor, the land grab button was overlaid by the purge tool, so you couldn't expand your colony in that mode.
Also, when creating new planets, you can now again predefine the difficulty level a player must master of your planets!
Would be very interested in how accessible you find the editor as such, would it be more exciting for you if you could play multiple planets in a galaxy map or would it be more interesting for you to be able to script complex missions with a story told by voice actors in dialogues?




We have created new roof textures for coal-fired power plants, industrial farm and organic farm. All buildings should create a better visual balancing act between post-industrial look and futuristic appearance. At the same time, the new textures of the roofs should visually connect them, so that they also fit with the quarry and the forestry farm. They now look more like you would build these buildings if you landed on a new planet in a capsule and wanted to provide basic supplies for your colony. I personally feel the style is a successful mix of steampunk and post-industrial age, what do you think?


The nine tree species of the third vegetation type, which we have affectionately christened Thicket, now have individual icons that make them more recognizable when planted. Thicket tree species grow on wasteland and frost type planets, these worlds offer the most exotic plant life next to mushrooms and terrestrial forests, check them out to see how appropriate they seem to you.

• Pause and select button icons were still displayed in the build menu, but did not work.
  
• Display category and building icons/buttons in build menu with equal spacing at the same height
  
• Cas in cities do not jerk anymore
  
• Optimized build process makes updates easier

As always, thank you very much if you had the interest to read this far!
Jens & Martin

• Fixed graphic errors in transparent building elements, e.g. when placing a new building or in the shield of frontier towers
  
• Fixed “ambient occulusion” not working
  
• Fixed two problems that could make the game crash