Here’s a union of two of my favorite German cultural exports: Dorfromantik, the exquisitely designed, minimalist landscape-building game, and Kurzgesagt — In A Nutshell, a YouTube channel that puts out tastefully animated, fascinating, and approachable explainers about the cosmos, biology, futurism, evolution, and other science-y topics.
Toukana Interactive, the developer of Dorfromantik, is collaborating with Kurzgesagt on Star Birds, a base-building and resource management game in which the channel’s cute, duck-like bird mascots explore space by hopping from asteroid to asteroid, mining, building, and creating automated production networks as they go.
The first thing that stands out about the game is its look, which uses Kurzgesagt’s house graphical style — bright colours, clean lines, and rounded contours — to render toylike, rotating asteroids reminiscent of the Super Mario Galaxy games.
Image: Toukana Interactive/Kurzgesagt
Toukana laid out what to expect from the game on its Steam page and an accompanying post to Dorfromantik’s page. Players will use rovers to explore asteroids and uncover hidden resources; build mining and production facilities to research and manufacture new tech; fulfill quests set by the anarchic birds on their space station; establish trading routes and ultimately take off for new star systems. The asteroids are procedurally generated, and the key to the game will be using the 360-degree building system to make the most efficient use of each space rock’s limited surface area, connecting units with hand-drawn pipework.
Toukana and Kurzgesagt also promise “a mysterious storyline featuring kurzgesagt vibes,” “resources & production processes inspired by real science,” and “rogue-lite elements & high replayability.” They warn that Space Birds is not a 4X game or a realistic physics simulation, however.
If Dorfromantik is anything to go by, Star Birds will be soothing, absorbing, and perfectly balanced. If Kurzgesagt is anything to by, it will be philosophical, surprising, curious, and a little bit epic, with dry narration. I can’t wait. Star Birds is set for release in 2025.
