14 DAY TRIAL // 
Planetary governors have a tough job, especially when working for a massive space-based corporation. I need to push my population up, which requires more power and food for everyone and, of course, plenty of money. I need to mine some rare resources for my boss and that location is hard to get to. I also need to deal with competitors and plan for the long term. But the biggest choice right now is: do I need sustainable farms or a chemical plant.
Imagine Earth is a video game created and published by Serious Bros, a two-man team that has worked on it for seven years. The game is offered on the PC via Steam and is a quiet revolution for the way it makes civilization development and city builder games accessible and fun.
The game asks players to become administrators who, in the future, need to develop planets and reach certain objectives defined by their bosses. These involve reaching population thresholds, getting access to resources, and more. The campaign story is solid but not spectacular and the game also offers players a chance to test their abilities in challenges and an endless mode.
Each planetary development scenario starts off with a landing site and limited money for initial development. Players need to hook up power, secure food and trade goods for their population, and find resources of potential future wealth to trade.
Complexity increases as the population rise, with more resources required, accidents to deal with, and planetary missions to complete. Get a warehouse and spaceport up as quickly as possible to mine resources, add a workshop to create powerful items that can reshape tiles or stop catastrophes. Imagine Earth throws a lot of choices at the player and delivers a fast, satisfying pace, especially when running on the highest possible game speed.
The biggest wrench thrown into an efficient planet development process is the licensing system. Because greedy corporations rule the future, players need to use special permissions (gained at certain thresholds) to unlock what's needed. There aren’t enough licenses for everything, which leads to interesting choices that then affect how each population and industry hub evolves.
More options open up when items are dropped by the company, then trading takes place with colorful characters, or when dealing with alien tech. Planets also have native populations, although here the interactions seem a little limited. A World Congress also pops up at regular intervals, complete with factions, voting, and some cool potential resolutions (try and go fully green and see how competitors react).
Imagine Earth also features climate change and its effects. Disasters routinely strike as a planet warms, mainly because of player-created emissions, and flooding is also a possibility. It’s hard to be green from the start. But once cities grow a little and players create some moneymaking industry it is a cool challenge to try and develop further without destroying the planet.
There’s constant pressure to get the population up and claim as much of a planet as possible, which creates tension with sustainable development options. This makes for good gameplay and genuinely hard choices. I was never bored and the game knows to offer a high-speed mode for moments when everything goes right and no intervention is required.
The campaign creates engaging situations and adds complexity at a good pace, with plenty of side missions to keep players engaged even after being promoted from a planet. Imagine Earth also has a competition mode, which opens up a wide range of customization options for a tight, challenging experience.
Imagine Earth manages to be both cute and informative, which is quite the achievement for a management title. The planets you explore look like bright, colorful playsets while also allowing players to identify buildings and resources quickly. The interface is intuitive and responsive, making it easy to achieve objectives and track goals. That this is the work of just two people is impressive, to say the least. Even the music and the voice work (a little over the top) work well with the theme, although I switched to some electronic futuristic tracks after a few hours.
The Good
- Management mechanics
- Beautiful presentation
- Campaign progression
The Bad
- Some moments of attention overload
- Lack of detailed interactions
- Soundtrack could be more varied
Conclusion
There are times when the title seems to deliver more core ideas than it has to, possibly to add more challenge even if it does not need to. But most of the time the game from Serious Bros is both engaging and enchanting. Imagine Earth shines in both campaign and free play and I cannot wait to see how the team expands on its core mechanics.
Review code provided by the publisher.
