Half Bus — a team of developers from Minsk, Belarus — recently ran a successful Kickstarter for Basement, a business management simulator title that’s perhaps a bit more edgy than — say — Tiny Tower. In Basement you take control of a scientist aspiring to do something that’s anything but noble: becoming the proprietor of the most successful drug production facility in the entire city. Make no doubts about it — however — your dreams are quite wrong and illegal, and therefore — no matter how hard you try — your empire is eventually going to collapse when you receive an all expenses paid trip to the slammer.
However, until that day arrives, you’ll need to manage the construction of rooms dedicated to producing various drugs — finding enough staff, preferably trustworthy, to ensure that supply always meets demand — as well as various other factors as they occur. What do you do when a fire breaks out in one of your labs and begins spreading throughout the compound, what do you do when the police start knocking, how about when the demand for the drug you’ve been focusing on suddenly drops off rapidly? You’ll have to react to all of these various issues — and more — quickly and intelligently, because — even if total failure is utterly inevitable — you can still aim to see just how far your empire can rise before everything finally collapses all around you
Originally beginning as the 11th place winner during the 29th “Ludum Dare” game jam, Half Bus’s Basement recently concluded a successful Kickstarter that enabled them to secure over $28,000 in additional development funds. With these vital funds obtained, the team can now begin expanding their early demo into a very Breaking Bad esque version of Tiny Tower. Furthermore — as their Kickstarter went well over its initial $15,000 milestone — Half Bus was even able to conquer their expanded platform stretch goal, meaning that Basement will additionally be arriving for both iOS and Android users.
Although the project’s Kickstarter is now over, those interested in helping Half Bus out can still currently preorder Basement — via the project’s home page — for $8.99 if they should feel inclined. Unfortunately — though — none of the expanded backer rewards are available for purchase through this method, meaning that your dreams of being a quest based Elite Buyer will forever continue to go utterly unrealized. Either way, Half Bus predicts that people everywhere will be able to begin their rogue scientist fantasies — or perhaps just attempt to recreate scenes from Breaking Bad — sometime early next year.