Arid Frontiers

Arid Frontiers is a real-time, pause-anytime colony-survival game for Windows. Choose a frontier landing site, guide autonomous settlers, and turn a vulnerable camp into a working homestead.

Join Discord · Visit Voxel Pulse Games · Watch the gameplay trailer

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Compare regional water, climate, resources, and growing season before landing. Where will your settlers store supplies, shelter, and grow food? Regional estimates guide your choice; exact terrain is revealed after landing.

Choose settlers with complementary skills and assign work priorities. Balance hauling and construction with food, rest, and warmth. Their needs and relationships make the colony more than a collection of buildings.

Establish storage and shelter, construct a well, grow crops, and prepare supplies for changing conditions. Pause to plan, then watch your settlers carry out the work.

Up to 120 minutes of active demo play; browser and standalone Windows versions; settler selection and landing-site planning; construction, farming, wells, hauling, work priorities, needs, wildlife, weather, research, and save/load. This is a developing pre-alpha, not a finished game.

The gallery leads with current gameplay, followed by the September 3 settler overview and landing-site screens. The September 1 trailer shows an earlier build; the newest release improves the setup interfaces.

Being improved: the opening 30 minutes, instructions, UI scaling, browser frame pacing, reliable duties, and save/load. Focused playtests and confusing or blocking issues come before broad new systems.

Later, subject to scope and testing: deeper events, relationships, expeditions, and long-term colony challenges. Planned work is not a promise that every feature is already complete.

Help shape the next stage

We are looking for first-time players to try the opening 30 minutes without developer coaching. What made sense? Where did you hesitate? What stopped your colony? No purchase is required. You can stop at any time.

Play and leave feedback on itch.io or join the Discord community. Include build version, browser/Windows, resolution, text size, what you expected, and what happened. Remove personal information before sharing screenshots or saves.

This remains a campaign preview. Funding scope, budget breakdown, digital rewards, pricing, and delivery estimates will be finalized before funding launches. No release date, Steam-key entitlement, or additional-platform commitment is being announced.

Development risks

Pre-alpha saves, balance, artwork, and performance may change between builds. Browser performance depends on your hardware and browser. Automated checks help catch regressions, but do not replace independent full-session playtests.

Build 0.9.20260908 — Equipment & Combat Clarity

The latest Arid Frontiers pre-alpha update focuses on your settlers: what they carry, what they wear, and how they fight.

A CLEARER SETTLER INVENTORY

The movable settler panel now groups Status, Journal, Orders, Duties and Inventory. Inspect carried supplies and equipped gear, drop items onto the ground, and right-click suitable clothing, armor or weapons in storage to equip them.

FITTED 2D EQUIPMENT — FIRST ART PASS

The cotton shirt, miner vest, leather pants, work boots, frontier hat and primitive spear have fitted painted sprites. The vest stays open over the shirt, and the hat layers above the hair. Our existing 2D settlers remain. This is a pilot outfit, not a finished conversion of every garment.

ATTACK MOTIONS FOR ALL TEN WEAPONS

Spears thrust; knives stab or slash; the stone sword cleaves. The bow builds tension and releases, the sling winds up, and the rifle recoils. Preparation and release follow the combat simulation. Pausing freezes the animation, and interrupted attacks restore the normal weapon display. These are lightweight weapon motions and body reactions; dedicated directional arm and hand artwork is still planned.

CHECKED BEFORE RELEASE

22 local release test suites passed, including 270 weapon-animation checks, full-world startup and save/load checks. This is not a claim of final balance or measured browser performance on every device. Arid Frontiers remains a work-in-progress pre-alpha; please back up important saves before trying a new build.

PLAY AND SHARE FEEDBACK

Play the two-hour browser demo or download the standalone Windows .exe: https://zortanis.itch.io/arid-frontiers

Website: https://voxelpulsegames.com

Discord: https://discord.gg/eCxT52hWWc

Try equipping a settler, checking their inventory and issuing a combat order. Tell us which equipment or attack is hardest to read at normal gameplay zoom.

Screenshots and animated comparison:

https://zortanis.itch.io/arid-frontiers/devlog/1656339/equipment-you-can-see-combat-you-can-read-demo-0920260908