In the future, mankind expands through the galaxy, and corporations race to exploit every planet they can. The player is an employee of Blackwater Industries (with the slogan "Putting profit before people.") and is given the task of running a series of off-world colonies. They must manage both the base and the personnel which inhabits and runs it. This task is complicated by the fact that the colonists are all rejects from society, and will cause problems of one sort or another.
Space Colony is both a strategy game and a personality management simulation; it can be described as Stronghold and The Sims combined, put in space. The player has to set up resource harvesting, resource processing, recreation facilities, tourist facilities, military installations etc. to keep your colonists happy/productive, defend the base, and make money. The colonists have a shift cycle, how long they will work is directly affected by how happy they are, so it pays to micromanage them.
What makes this game distinct is that each colonist has a unique personality. There are around twenty colonists which can populate the base in one mission or another. Each colonist has their own needs, skills and interpersonal relations with other colonists. There are a number of game modes: Career Mode, Galaxy Mode, Sandbox Mode, and even user-created maps. In individual missions, the player will have to compete against rival corporations or aliens for domination of the planet they are exploiting.
- (MobyGames)