Aquatico is a survival city builder set at the bottom of the sea

It wasn't impossible to build Rapture at the bottom of the sea, it was impossible to build it anywhere else. Or so Andrew Ryan claimed. The denizens of Aquatico seem to have a much clearer excuse for their underwater urban planning: Earth has been rendered a barren wasteland, meaning they can build their homes better down where it's wetter. You'll find a teaser trailer below.

Teaser trailer or not, this is more or less all I need. Some dense clusters of buildings, some swarms of citizens rushing about, and a locale I haven't yet thrown up a digital Cumbernauld.

Described as a "survival city building game", you'll have more to worry about than the typical SimCity-ish balance of peep needs. You'll need to "seek out and secure available basic and advanced resources, manufacture what is required for life in the ocean depths and overcome unique dangers" in order to prosper. I'm hoping the buildings get covered in algae and you need to employ one of those tank-cleaning fish to lick it off.

It's also all obviously scifi, meaning you'll be building drones, submarines and underwater robots. Although, having said that, those are all things that actually exist in our reality - and the oldest of them, submarines, are somehow the one that feel most like science fiction.

Aquatico is aiming for release this autumn, and is being developed by Digital Reef Games. It's being published by Overseer Games, who are also the developers of another survival city builder, Patron. That pedigree hopefully bodes well. You can find more screenshots of Aquatico on Steam.