12 October 2026
It started with one screenshot
About a month ago, I took the scary step of sharing my first screenshot of the game on Reddit. Obviously I hoped for some good feedback. But, I didn't expect the positive response I got - which directly led to what followed.
Some background first - directly from the Reddit post:
It's taken me so many years to get here. I've started and stopped this project many times. Usually stalled due to my own technical skills.
But, I've got a working prototype finally of a game level! This is an actual in-game screenshot (though some of the UI items and tools are still not implemented)
I grew up on Impressions city builder games - Caesar 3, Pharaoh, Zeus, and always miss them. Every now and then I'd get an itch to build one myself, especially when I would find myself going down the black hole of "lost" civilizations.
The Indus Valley Civilization is one. I've been fascinated with it forever and thought a grid-walker-style game would be a great match.
And here it is. Lately I focused on getting it to look better. It's something important to me when I personally play games, and I realized it was one of the reasons I often walked away from the project. Thanks to modern tools, and AI help (I know it's not ideal, but I was genuinely blocked and needed its help) it's starting to look nice.
First time I've told anyone (besides my wife) about it. The first time I'm posting a screenshot. And you may just be one of the first people to see it.
I'm not sure why I'm sharing. I guess because it is a lonely journey. I know I have a crazy amount left to do. But for the first time I played the game and felt it was real.
A huge thank you to everyone who commented on that post, especially AlexanderGGA who also played an early prototype and told me I was hitting the mark.
The last month has been crazy. I've been pouring every minute of spare time I have into the game. Many, many late nights and early mornings. I've changed things too many times to count. The scope has grown. Things definitely got a lot more complicated. It was one thing to get the basic mechanics right. A completely different thing to plan out ~20 missions.
I'm still waiting on getting my Steamworks account approved. Apparently Steam's been a lot slower recently with the influx of new AI-generated games. So I decided to put up this website to have a place to record and share the journey.
Expect a lot more content here soon, including details on the missions, buildings, and history.