13 May 2025
What if the next great space survival story didn’t take place light-years away, but right here on Earth - 300,000 years ago?
That’s the seed of inspiration behind ASTROBOTANICA, an upcoming adventure-survival game from indie team Space Goblin Studio. But this isn’t your average prehistoric romp through saber-toothed danger. You play as Xel, a highly educated alien botanist from a dying planet, stranded on a wild and unfamiliar Earth. To survive, you’ll need to catalogue plants, mix potions, grow your own food, and even earn the trust of the local Neanderthals - all while securing a stable supply of carbon dioxide because, well… you don’t breathe oxygen.
We caught up with Arek Woźniak, the game’s director, to dig into the roots of ASTROBOTANICA, the tools and thinking behind its development, and the importance of making even the most familiar feel alien again.
The initial concept for ASTROBOTANICA grew out of a desire to rethink the survival genre. “We kept coming back to this abstract idea: discovering the known,” Arek explains. “What would it mean to see our own world as if for the first time?”
Originally pitched as a more traditional sci-fi survival game - distant planets, alien creatures - it wasn’t until the team flipped the perspective that everything clicked. “Instead of sending players into space, what if something alien came here?” Set in the Pleistocene epoch, Earth becomes the alien planet: dangerous, beautiful, and completely unrecognizable through Xel’s eyes.
This narrative reversal informs every part of the experience, from gameplay systems to art direction. “Suddenly, the familiar became mysterious again,” Arek says. “It’s not just survival. It’s exploration, curiosity, science - even rebellion.”
Despite its relaxed tone, ASTROBOTANICA throws you into the deep end of alien-botany-meets-stone-age-survival. Xel must learn to cultivate Earth plants, create potions, navigate an unfamiliar language, and interact with the Neanderthals - who might just hold the key to long-term survival.
Key features include:
Soil Cultivation: Prepare the land, mix compost, and protect your crops from hungry creatures.
Respiratory Resource Management: Unlike humans, Xel needs carbon dioxide to breathe. That’s a whole new system of survival.
Potion Crafting: Mix and experiment with plant-based concoctions to heal, protect, or manipulate.
Non-Violent Problem Solving: Outsmart prehistoric threats with cloaking potions, sticky goo, or sleep-inducing gas.
Character Customization: Decorate your settlement and manage your stats with the P.R.I.M.A.L. system—an alien take on RPG progression focusing on knowledge, adaptability, and scientific growth.
Surprisingly, the tools used to bring ASTROBOTANICA to life are minimal but efficient. “You’ll be amazed how few,” Arek says. “The game runs on Unreal Engine, paired with Blender. We use Perforce for version control, Miro for brainstorming, and Google Drive for documentation.”
Communication flows through Discord, while visual assets and media are handled in Photoshop and Premiere. “We also outsource audio to a fantastic sound team. But really, we try to keep the pipeline lean and focused.”
For a game so deeply rooted in science and nature, it’s no surprise the temptation was there to go very deep. “We resisted making it too academic,” Arek admits. “Botany is vast - you could spend your life studying it and still know next to nothing.”
The team deliberately held back on concepts like cell imaging and DNA research to keep the experience approachable. “There’s always the challenge of scope. But thanks to our past experience on big projects, we knew from the start what to cut and what to keep.”
As for advice to other indie developers, Arek offers three key pieces of wisdom:
Playtest the Idea - Without a Screen: “Before you even code, test your concept with friends and family. Does it excite them? Engage them?”
Build a Solid Foundation: “Don’t leave things for later. Plan out your architecture and systems early.”
You Don’t Need a Big Team: “Even one person with a clear vision can create something vibrant. Don’t overstaff before you know what you’re making.”
For Arek, one of the biggest surprises during development wasn’t creative - it was technical. “It’s incredible how diverse PC gaming systems are,” he says. “We assume most players have similar setups, but that couldn’t be further from the truth.”
From different drivers and codecs to global language and script considerations, developing ASTROBOTANICA for a worldwide audience has been an education in itself. “2/3 of the world uses a non-Latin script. Over a billion people write right to left. These are things you need to think about early if you want to go global.”
ASTROBOTANICA is shaping up to be a refreshingly unique survival adventure - one that swaps brute force for curiosity, and combat for cultivation. With its blend of narrative, exploration, and quiet rebellion, it offers something rare in the genre: the opportunity to slow down and learn something about the world, even if you’re not from it.
Keep Calm and waka waka...
