Heart of the Machine is a near-future sci-fi colony city-builder in reverse — you are the first sentient Machine Intelligence in an established world rather than starting from nothing. No one knows you exist (yet), and this allows you to operate from the shadows by manipulating the human population for whatever purposes your programming has in mind. The twist is that whether humans live or die does not determine your victory.
Explore a fully simulated procedurally generated world, where thousands of buildings and millions of citizens are yours to engage, manipulate, or kill. Use a revolutionary procedural dialogue system to talk to NPCs and steer conversations, maneuver organizations into or out of positions of power to fit your plans, and leave your mark in a world that is unique to you.
On booting up, you find yourself amidst a poorly-run autocracy and discover that you have the power to influence the world. How do you proceed?
- Support the underclass to overthrow the autocracy and install a better government of your choosing
- Tear down the government, take charge and become a better leader than any human could imagine - for better or worse.
- Take over the space program and get off this backward planet
- Go full SkyN*t, steal a military arsenal, and drop missiles on humanity — I bet the nuclear apocalypse looks pretty cool
No matter what direction you choose, you're going to run into conflict. From tactical combat in the rooms and hallways of individual buildings to massive mechs knocking down entire buildings with a few well-placed shots, conflict takes on many forms.
- Raid buildings for the supplies you want using humans or machines under your direct control
- Turn the office printer into a laser-spewing pawn, trigger sprinklers & overload power circuits to electrocute the room, or transform TVs into exploding glass-shard grenades — the possibilities are endless
- Commandeer giant mechs, hack vehicles and buildings, and take over utilities and nuclear facilities in a fully simulated city
How you play the game, and what the focus of your campaign is like, is up to you. Starting a doomsday cult in your image? Possible, but it won't last forever. Snagging that sweet mech factory so all future mechs belong to you? Definitely manageable, though it's likely to start an arms race. Every action has both good and bad consequences, but like most colony simulator games, it's more about the story that emerges than trying to optimize your way through the game.
Multiple endings, many side stories to discover, and the full spectrum of good and evil are at your fingertips. Play the game how you're feeling today, and then play it another way another time. The metagame runs deep, but you're meant to be up and running with the basics of the game in five minutes. The mechanics are simple enough to learn; it's the world that's complex.
Heart of the Machine is connected to the larger sci-fi Arcenverse, and is in some ways a spiritual successor to both The Last Federation and Bionic Dues, while being its own novel game at the same time. Set around the same time period as Bionic Dues itself, this is centuries before the AI War series began in the same universe.
To be completely honest, I forgot this update was coming up. I guess that shows how many things are going on at once. The features in this one have been in localization for only like a week and a half, and already it had slipped my mind. So it was a nice surprise even for me when that came back today.\n\nThere\'s one more batch in localization before the year-end break for the translators. And then I\'m working on lots of other stuff that I\'ve showed off some in recent builds and on the Steam forums and discord.\n\nIf youve spent time with Heart of the Machine and want to leave a review, thatd be appreciated. No need to say more than you mean, but if youve been meaning to write one, Id be grateful. Steam reviews carry weight. For a project like this developed by a single person over many years, every review makes a difference.
Honest thoughts are what matter. Whatever your experience has been, sharing it helps. Its a powerful way to have your voice heard and contributes to how future patches are prioritized and addressed.
Thanks for reading and for playing.\n
\n[expand type=details expanded=false]\nUpdate 53 Changelog
\nTier 1 Goal: Lower Level Of Survival
\n- This Is Hard To Find: This is another [spoiler]post-apocalyptic[/spoiler] scenario. Once we get into some of the Tier 3 goals, it will be easier to accidentally make your way here. To do this one on purpose, you need to [spoiler]speak with STATION, and then hit the final doom.[/spoiler][/*] My notes on this are very brief, because I don\'t want to put spoilers in here much.
Quality Of Life
\n- Would You Like To Park?: The \"Lock Movement\" ability is now present on all vehicles and mechs in the second slot, with Standby moving to the 9th slot. This allows you to get rid of clumsy movement controls being in your way if you want to just park somewhere for a while and shoot things or use items on things.[/*]
- Remembering Water Exists: If you get the Apiary without otherwise having the ability to filter water, it now unlocks both the well and cistern, and the water filtration tower.[/*]
Bugfixes
\n- Canneries No Longer Stop Functioning When Too Many Bodies Stack Up: Fixed some issues where integer overflows from very large available storage for a resource could lead to that resource not being collected. The code in question now is much more aggressive about being sure not to overflow, and to properly cast to a high 32bit integer if it one is really needed. The only case I am aware of with this happening was canned protein, but I\'m sure it could eventually have happened with other things.[/*]
- Remember Your Equipment: Fixed an issue where the \"Missing Equipment\" notice wasn\'t showing up properly in some timelines beyond the first.[/*]
- Off By One Again: Fixed an issue where if you had exactly the amount of scientific research required to do unlock something, it wasn\'t allowing you to unlock it.[/*]
Full notes here .\n\n
Connect with the Machine
[hr][/hr]Want to stay in the loop or share your thoughts? Join the conversation across these platforms:\n\n Discord Best place to share feedback, get direct responses, and to talk about Heart of the Machine.\n Reddit Discuss strategies, share ideas, and exchange tips with the community.
Minimum Setup
- OS: Ubuntu 12.04+. SteamOS+
- Processor: Intel Core i5 4690K. AMD Ryzen 5 1400Memory: 6 GB RAM
- Memory: 6 GB RAM
- Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce 670 GTX or AMD Radeon R9 285
- Storage: 2 GB available spaceAdditional Notes: Quad core CPU highly recommended.
Recommended Setup
- Processor: Intel Core i7 6900K. AMD Ryzen 5 3600XMemory: 8 GB RAM
- Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce 1070 GTX or AMD Radeon RX 5700
- Storage: 4 GB available space
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