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Press release:
[Aotearoa / New Zealand] – December 10, 2025 – Stormcloak Games and indie.io have announced during the Frosty Games Mini showcase that Adaptory, the indie survival base-building colony sim, will enter Early Access on Steam on January 26, 2026. Frosty Games Mini is an online event dedicated to the finest games created in Australia and Aotearoa / New Zealand.

Adaptory is an ambitious systems-driven adventure focusing on the valiant crew of a Terranean starship on a mission of exploration. A sudden malfunction forces the ship to crash land on an uncharted planetoid. Roused from their long slumber, the player’s four explorers now need to survive on the seemingly barren rock, build a base to sustain themselves – and hopefully not get on each other’s nerves too much.

Each explorer is procedurally generated, with their own set of skills, traits, and opinions. Beyond simply determining what they can do well and what will almost certainly lead to an emergency, they drive relationships between explorers. Their interactions create a unique story for each playthrough, with each explorer leading a unique life after the crash. Players can explore their thoughts by examining their diaries or listen in on the conversations going on as they go about their busy daily routines.

These routines start out simple, focused on immediate survival: Find food and oxygen supplies scattered in the crash, build shelter to protect explorers from the cold vacuum, and set up a rudimentary base. Complexity naturally grows over time: Pre-packaged supplies run out eventually and explorers need to set up agriculture to secure food and oxygen supply, while research using recovered data chips requires expanding across the planetoid for more raw resources. Eventually, players are able to add automation to the base, to manage the volume of tasks as the post-crash shelter turns into a sustainable settlement.

Players are free to tackle these emerging challenges as they see fit, backed by CHARLI, the cheeky artificial intelligence tasked with ensuring the explorers’ survival. CHARLI’s tutorials help players grasp each element of the gameplay, interlocking with the intricate simulation of physics and chemistry. Adaptory simulates gravity, temperature, density, viscosity, and even phase transitions for fifty different materials.

Each problem has a solution limited only by the players’ ingenuity in using these systems for their own benefit, whether it be funneling molten rock to provide heat and power, or refining materials into rare resources. Players should stay on their toes: Environmental anomalies, unchecked expansion, the odd meteor shower or sun eclipse will stress-test both explorers and their base, requiring further creative thinking in case of an emergency.

The resulting emergent gameplay and players coming up with novel, yet sustainable solutions to these problems are a pillar of the game’s design.

“We wanted to create a game that encourages resiliency, long-term thinking, and reflecting on the impact that the player has on their environment and community,” notes Jevon Wright, solo developer and designer.

“We believe that the challenge of nurturing them is more rewarding than simply abandoning our mistakes and looking for a fresh canvas.”

Are you up to the challenge? Adaptory will enter Early Access on Steam on January 26, 2026. Join the Discord server and a growing community of Adaptory fans actively involved in helping shape the game’s design – then follow Stormcloak Games on YouTube, BlueSky, Mastodon, and Instagram to stay up to date!