T-Minus 30

One of the reasons why SimCity has endured for multiple decades is because it's so easy to spend hours building up, tearing down and tweaking every aspect of your growing community. But what if I were to say that you only had thirty minutes to create an entire city? Do you think that's enough time? Now, what if I told you that the Earth is going to be decimated in a half hour? Would you be able to handle the pressure? That's the premise of T-Minus 30, a new game that wants you to rapidly build a civilization and just as quickly get the lucky survivors off the planet before everything goes to hell. If you can handle that much responsibility, then you'll discover the most nerve-racking management simulator since that one time Bowser stomped all over my SimCity.

I hate to be doom and gloom here, but the world as we know it is going to end in the late 2030s. At least, that's what T-Minus 30 predicts. It seems that a whole bunch of asteroids are going to pummel the Earth, wiping out millions of humans and forever changing the planet. Now, three centuries later, the survivors are bracing for another wave of destructive asteroids. Knowing that civilization won't be able to weather a second round, the humans have decided to build a space fleet and flee Earth with as many survivors as possible.

As you probably figured out by now, T-Minus 30 puts you in control of saving those people. And if that wasn't stressful enough, you also don't have a whole lot of time to do this job. In fact, you only have a half hour. That's thirty real-time minutes. That's it. Obviously, that's not a whole lot of time, so you better have a plan. For every second you waste, millions of innocent people will perish on a dying planet. You don't want that on your conscious, do you?

There are a few things you're going to want to do right up front. You'll build a well and plant a garden, that way your growing civilization will be able to eat. Speaking of which, you'll also need to build camps and apartments for all the new people, as well as give them a job mining for materials. A lot of the gameplay revolves around stripping the surrounding area of all of its resources, which you'll use to create bigger buildings and more advanced technology. All that will lure people to the city, where you'll eventually load them onto a bunch of rocket ships and send them into space. Simple, right?

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Like I said, that clock is always ticking, so no matter what plan you go with, you better hurry. This aspect of the game adds a sense of tension and anxiety to the simulation that you never got in SimCity or Theme Park. After a few tries, you'll know exactly what you need to do, so a lot of the challenge comes down to dealing with the unpredictable procedurally-generated landscape. This is made even harder by the limited visibility, which means you'll have to explore the area in order to reveal all of its secrets. And with that clock constantly reminding you that there are only a few minutes left, you'll be sweating right up until the end as you place the last-second rockets.

Beyond the levels being procedurally-generated, there are ten different scenarios that each have their own unique quirk. There's a city stage that is short on forest, a forest level without a lot of buildings, an island bit where you'll need to build a bunch of bridges and some extra challenging bits at the end where you'll have to search far and wide for the material you need. I like that these different scenarios not only make you come up with different strategies, but also have their own leaderboards.

A lot of the replay comes from trying to beat your score and earn all three stars. It's easy enough to get a few thousand people off this planet, but the game really comes to life when you discover the high-level tactics and figure out how to use the advanced technology to its fullest. I had so much fun going back to the early stages and absolutely dominating, and I can see myself replaying all of the stages in order to earn the highest scores. Even though it's strictly a single-player experience, there is a competitive angle to the scoring that will definitely lead to some heated competitions.

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For as much as I love the fast-paced nature of T-Minus 30, I found that the thing I like the most about the game is also the thing that holds it back. Because there isn't much time, the developers have wisely limited the number of buildings you can construct and things you can do. Because of that, as well as the time limit, a lot of the levels can feel a bit samey. There's a repetition to each playthrough, especially in the early parts of the stages, when you're placing the same buildings in the same order.

It doesn't help that most of the scenarios look the same. Sure, some are more urban and others are islands, but they are all using the same sprites and tiles. It's a shame we don't get more variety in the color palette. Environmental hazards or climate conditions could have been fun ways of not only shaking up the challenge, but also the visual presentation. On the other hand, I love how chill the soundtrack is, especially given how stressful the game can be at times. While I got sick of seeing the same graphics in every level, I never got tired of the music.

Despite a few shortcomings, I really love how much T-Minus 30 shakes up the formula. By giving us a very specific goal, there's a real sense of urgency built into every stage. I played almost every scenario on the edge of my seat, constantly worried about wasting too much time and leaving millions of people behind. This is the kind of game that will remind you just how short thirty minutes really is.