Imagine starting on a distant planet with nothing but a tiny survival ship. You need to gather resources, mine ores, refine them into ingots, manufacture components, and slowly build your way toward something bigger.
That's the kind of game I've been dreaming about for years, so 4 years ago I decided to start making it myself.
It's called MineEngineer, a 2D space engineering survival sandbox where almost everything you build has a purpose, and every engineering decision can have consequences.
I didn't want building to be just placing blocks together and calling it a spaceship. I wanted players to actually think about how their creations work.
For example, you can build a massive battleship with dozens of thrusters, weapons, and storage containers. But without a properly designed power system, fuel distribution, oxygen supply, and conveyor network, it's just a giant piece of metal floating through space.
There are already over 200 interconnected systems in the game. You can program individual blocks, create automated factories, build remote-controlled drones, design walking mechas, or construct entire ships that operate with minimal player interaction.
And everything is physically simulated and destructible. A single well-placed hit could disable your engines, destroy your conveyor network, or even split your ship in half.
You can spend hours designing the perfect ship, only to discover a tiny engineering mistake during your first battle.
I also wanted exploration to feel meaningful. The universe is procedurally generated, with planets, asteroids, different environments, enemies, and plenty of space to explore. It's actually so massive that crossing the entire world at full speed takes around 7 hours.
I'm also working on progression, more enemies, environmental hazards, bosses, and multiplayer, so there will be more reasons to explore, survive, and keep improving your creations.
The crazy part is that I've been developing all of this alone for the past 4 years. There were so many moments when I thought certain mechanics would be impossible to implement, but slowly, piece by piece, everything has started coming together.
The game is called MineEngineer, and there's already a free demo available on Steam. You can also wishlist it if the concept sounds interesting.
I'm curious about one thing though. If you had complete freedom to build and program almost any machine in a massive 2D universe, what would you try to create first?
Personally, I think watching people build things I never even imagined is going to be one of the most exciting parts of releasing this game.
