EXODUS: The City Must Move

Humanity's last moving city survives by harvesting thermal energy from a frozen world. Balance power, resources, and impossible choices to keep civilization alive and moving.

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## 🏔️ Inspiration

"What if humanity's last city could never stop moving?"

EXODUS: The City Must Move began with this single, high-stakes question. The design merges the deep emotional survival choices of city-management titles with a highly authentic, thermodynamic resource economy. Inspired by the relentless tension of macro-survival strategy games and real-world energy-harvesting physics, players must guide humanity's final mobile metropolis across a freezing void. The experience focuses on severe tradeoffs between industrial efficiency, citizen survival, structural expansion, and human welfare, ensuring every choice has systemic consequences.

🕹️ What it does

EXODUS is a mobile Simulation & Management game with intense survival loops.

Players command a colossal crawling city traversing a frozen planet in a desperate search for stable thermal zones. The entire ecosystem relies on a ThermoGrid energy network that converts environmental temperature gradients into vital electrical wattage.

To survive the frozen waste, players must balance a continuous multi-touch loop:

  • Route & Radiate: Generate and distribute raw power to life-support blankets and thruster modules.
  • Expand the Grid: Physically build and modularly scale new city districts on the chassis.
  • Manage Variables: Balance food, water, workforce allocation, and citizen morale.
  • Braving the Cold: Launch automated exploration expeditions and counter sudden dynamic weather crises.

The golden rule remains: The city must move. If the engine stops, the last refuge of humanity is lost.

🔬 How we designed it

The design methodology prioritized interconnected systems over isolated features.

The ThermoGrid system functions as the mathematical foundation of the entire in-game economy. Thermal generation rates directly dictate locomotion speed, structural degradation speeds, workforce efficiency, and resource refinery output. Environmental micro-climates directly impact voltage production, forcing players to actively plan physical travel trajectories.

The submission package was developed through systematic core-loop mapping, rigorous player journey planning, progression balancing, and honest production scoping to ensure the final blueprint is perfectly tailored for mobile performance.

⚠️ Challenges we ran into

The primary design hurdle was balancing systemic innovation with mobile accessibility.

The underlying thermodynamic energy mechanics needed to feel authentic and deep without overwhelming a player on a touch-screen interface. Another significant challenge was maintaining tight mechanical dependencies across all resources without causing systemic analysis paralysis. We overcame this by refining complex mathematical calculations into intuitive, dashboard-driven strategic choices.

🏆 Accomplishments that we're proud of

  • 🛠️ Unique Thermal Economy: Built a functioning resource framework driven entirely by temperature differentials.
  • 🕸️ Interconnected Systems: Developed a highly dependent resource loop where physics directly impacts civil survival.
  • 🎨 Atmospheric Visual Identity: Established a striking, high-contrast aesthetic blending industrial Dieselpunk with Arctic Gothic tones.
  • 📱 Mobile-First Mechanics: Tailored interfaces and input layers explicitly for single-thumb and dual-touch layouts.
  • ⚖️ High-Friction Choices: Successfully engineered meaningful tradeoffs where a flawless "correct" choice does not exist.

💡 What we learned

This project reinforced how vital it is to anchor complex core mechanics directly to a compelling narrative theme.

By making thermal energy conversion both the story's anchor and the gameplay's foundation, the city's progression layout, economy, and structural crises naturally support a single, cohesive vision. We also discovered that designing around sharp mechanical friction and tradeoffs creates infinitely deeper engagement than standard optimization loops.

🚀 What's next for EXODUS: The City Must Move

The long-term vision is to scale this pre-production package into a deep, highly replayable strategy title featuring:

  • 🏢 Advanced District Archetypes and high-conductivity ThermoGrid tech trees.
  • 📜 Branching Governance Paths allowing distinct political and ideological city states.
  • 🌩️ Dynamic Faction Networks and real-time seasonal weather fronts on the global radar.
  • 🤝 Asynchronous Cooperative and Competitive Multiplayer features via radio beacon trading networks.

Built With

  • adobe
  • ai-assisted
  • canva
  • concept
  • design
  • development
  • express.js
  • figma
  • game
  • planning
  • production
  • systems
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