A pixel-art life sim · coming to Steam Early Access

HELLO UNIVERSE

Before anything existed, someone typed a message into the dark and pressed send. The universe is what happened next.

Play the demo↓ How it starts

Click anywhere in the dark to make a star.

13.8 billion years later

Dawn. One figure sits in the grass. It looks up, straight at you.

This is your first person. They were born a minute ago, so everything is new: the first meal, the first fire, the first night. They write it all down in a little notebook, in their own words. You are the voice from the Big Bang.

…Was that you?

The game

Wake up alone.
Build a world.

Feed them, keep them warm, make them happy. Chop trees, make tools, build a camp. Find the town beyond the forest, trade with its people and earn their trust. Fight what lives in the wild. Grow a camp into a town, the town into a city, the city into the stars.

One small life

Food, rest, warmth and joy. When they're happy they work faster and say funnier things. They never die while you're away: they sleep safely by the fire.

Your hands in the world

Click a tree: it shakes, creaks and falls. Every action has a sound, a puff of dust and a result. Skills level up as you use them.

Always a next step

Hands, then a stone axe, a campfire, a shelter, a workbench, copper tools. Every few minutes something new opens up.

Something past the edge

Smoke over the trees. A bell in the distance. Eyes at the edge of the firelight. Creatures get tougher the further you go, and at night.

People who need you

Everyone in town has a skill, a want and a mind of their own. Trade with them, help them, and the ones who trust you move in.

Playable, right here

Your first ten minutes

The real art from the game. Use the mouse: click the ground to walk, click a bush to pick berries, click a tree to chop it. Five logs and three stones make a fire. Night is coming.

    Food
    Warmth
    Joy
    Day 1 · dawn
    Click the ground to walk

    Mouse only. About three minutes from dawn to night.

    A slice of the prototype, rebuilt for the browser. The full game adds crafting, quests, the village, saves and much more.

    Past the forest

    Smoke over the trees. Somebody made a bell.

    A frontier village that already lives: people with jobs, homes, friendships and plans of their own. They've never seen anyone come out of the woods. You have no money, so you barter, until the trader gets tired of carrying your logs around and the town gets its first coins.

    Hover the people

    Fighting

    Read the tell.
    Dodge. Strike back.

    Fast, skill-based action: swing where the mouse points, chain light and heavy hits, roll through danger. A boar paws the ground before it charges. A wolf crouches before it lunges. Hits freeze the frame for a heartbeat and send sparks flying.

    Animals aren't evil, just animals. Deer flee, wolves hunt in packs and back off from fire. If you're knocked out, you wake by the campfire. No permadeath.

    A village of stone and timber on floating islands above the clouds
    A sunny town street with a cafe, a library and a canal
    The town at night: lit windows, a noodle bar and fireflies over a pond
    A future city at night with robots, hover cars and neon

    From a camp to the stars

      Real stuff

      All 118 elements. Real ores. Real alchemy.

      Everything in the world is made of something real. Pan for gold in a river, smelt copper from green-streaked rock, mix reagents at the alchemist's bench, and one day split the atom. Each element turns up in the era it was really discovered.

      Au
      GoldHover an element

      The universe

      Real stars.
      Real planets.

      The map of the sky is built from real star and exoplanet catalogues, with stars in their true colours and real galaxies, nebulae and black holes. Your world sits somewhere among them.

      Some worlds start somewhere nobody has named yet. Where? Your astronomers will have to find out.

      0billion years of history in the intro
      0real elements
      0eras, from stone to space

      The question under everything

      What makes you happy?

      Your people ask it in a hundred small ways. What you answer, what you actually do and what your people come to love decide what kind of universe comes next. It all goes in the notebook.

      Coming to Steam Early Access

      Small and polished first. Then we grow it in public.

      Hello Universe launches on Windows in Early Access, single-player, in English, with dialogue that can be translated into your language.

      Steam page coming soon

      In Early Access

      • The Big Bang prologue and the opening of the story
      • Gather, craft, build: from a camp to a town
      • The village, its people, trade and quests
      • Action fighting in the wild, day and night
      • Hand-made pixel art, sound and music

      Planned for updates

      • A whole, seamless planet built from real Earth data
      • Rockets, space flight and other worlds
      • Multiplayer worlds
      • More acts of the story, more languages and voices