Rustlight is an idle survival game about a handful of people trying to hold a colony together on a rust-red planet. Mine ore, drill ice for water, grow food and raise solar panels, then get ready for the night, when the panels go dark and your batteries, your reactor and your engineers are all that stand between the crew and the cold.

Build modules and put your crew to work, and keep them staffed: a building with nobody on it runs at half speed, and every extra miner makes your mines faster still. Research new technologies, and make the hard calls when events strike: dust storms, meteor showers, blight in the greenhouses, volunteers asking to land when there is no room for them. Every choice has a cost.

Raise the Terraforming beacon to begin a new era, then leave the planet behind on a new expedition: you keep your relics and spend them on permanent upgrades, a landing kit, better insulation, faster shuttles, stronger hands, and the colony starts over, stronger than before.

Features

A day and night cycle that matters: plan your power before dark, and let the night shift keep the lights on
Staff your buildings: unstaffed modules run at 50%, so where you put your people is a real decision
12 modules, 4 crew jobs, 11 technologies and 13 events with real consequences
A goal every few minutes, each with a reward you feel right away: a free drill, two silos, a free research, double production
Expeditions and relics: five permanent upgrades and a radar that warns you before an event hits
An animated pixel-art colony with synthesized music and sound

Controls

Mouse:

Tap Mine ore and Drill ice, buy modules from the bottom bar, assign your crew, and pick an option when an event appears.

Keyboard:

M = mine ore
D = drill ice
P = pause
1-5 = open a tab
Esc = close a panel

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