A downloadable game for Windows and macOS

Home By The River is a unique builder game set in a dystopian not too distant future. You move to a polluted land by a river so that you may build your clean reactor secretly, and hide from the mighty Sigil Corporation. Construct your home & lab, farm, harvest, cook, earn money, gain virtue, clean pollution, get your technology out to the world, and so transform your dystopian world forever by your efforts. Enlist Pioneers of various professions to help you in your cause! You can play single player or LAN co-op. This is a more peaceful 2D builder game with a touch of Terraria and Stardew Valley inspiration, and without all the unnecessary grinding. Enjoy smooth and swift construction gameplay.

REMOVE POLLUTION

  • Cut down dead trees.
  • Remove trash.
  • Plant new trees.
  • Place solar panels.
  • Establish wind farms.
  • When you're filthy rich, build your clean reactor.

CREATE YOUR HOME

As you level up you'll gain more tiles to place in the world and evenutally you can build your lab as well. I've designed the tools for construction to be easy to use:

  • Right click acts like a colour picker and can also swap to the Axe tool for quick harvesting.
  • Alpha numeric keys allow you to quickly select a mode; delete, build, interact, inventory, foreground, props.
  • You can left click drag build and delete for fast construction and deletion.
  • Holding down left shift while constructing will immediately build a solid wall which is great for building faster and setting up defense walls against the Sigil drones.

FARM AND HARVEST

  • Plant corn, wheat, sugar, and trees.
  • Sell the harvested crop or you can process them further for use in cooking.
  • Let some trees grow to help reduce pollution and harvest some to sell their lumber. Do sustainable forestry.

YOUR STATS

  • Hunger - you can't do anything if you're hungry so eat food.
  • Energy - you can't do anything if you're tired, so get rest.
  • Spirit - you can't do anything if you're depressed, so meditate.
  • Hidden - your world will be demolished if you get found out so do keep away from the drones and destroy them.
  • Experience - gain XP, level up so you get more tile types to build and more neat stuff to do.
  • Virtue - defines how people react to you and your end game experience.

EARN INCOME

  • Sell harvested crops to rivermen, or better, through a trading terminal when you're higher level.
  • Collect sky nodes and get money, XP, and spirit.
  • Make computer games, if you make a legendary one you will make tons of cash.
  • Establish ventures in the background and let the passive income roll in.
  • Build solar panels. Yes, you'll get income from your solar farm.
  • Bail out businesses that are close to default. They'll take you on as a shareholder and give you dividends!

AND MUCH MORE

  • Establish your underground lab, gain research points, unlock research cards and create clean reactor components that you'll donate to the world.
  • Stop Sigil drone swarms from demolishing what you have built and upgrade your lightning rod to fight back!
  • Enlist pioneers who will help you achieve your objectives. Harvester pioneers will remove trash, cut down dead trees and harvest mature crops for you.
  • Feed your cat, change its colours, or give it a hat.
  • Play single player or over LAN. Harvested resources are duplicated across the network so everyone benefits. Also you can place a chest in the world to share items or just store it in that world!
  • Upgrade your hoverboard and fly!
  • And more for you to experience.

YOU INTO GAME DEV?

If you're interested in developing your own games then you may be interested in my Gamer To Game Developer Series 2. It is the foundation for Home By The River and you'll see how to make your own 2D world that players can build using the Unity game engine. You'll find it on my YouTube channel and on Steam.

StatusIn development
PlatformsWindows, macOS
Release date Nov 14, 2022
Rating
Rated 5.0 out of 5 stars
(1 total ratings)
AuthorGamer To Game Developer
GenreRole Playing, Adventure
Made withUnity, Aseprite
TagsAtmospheric, Crafting, Creative, Farming, Local multiplayer, Open World, Pixel Art, Side Scroller, wholesome
Average sessionDays or more
LanguagesEnglish
InputsKeyboard, Mouse
MultiplayerLocal multiplayer
Player count1 - 4
LinksSteam, Steam, Community, Blog, YouTube, Twitter/X, IndieDB, Facebook

Download

Download
Home By The River.zip 94 MB
Download
Home By The River.app.zip 104 MB

Install instructions

Just unzip the folder and run the .exe to play the game, for Mac just run the .app. You can also download the demo from Steam if you prefer.

Development log

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