Interview: Dyson Sphere Program producer talks Dark Fog update and the future

destructoid.com:

Three years ago, base builder and space simulation game Dyson Sphere Program was released and quite frankly blew my mind. I had already invested over 1,000 hours in Factorio and over 100 hours into Satisfactory, so I knew Dyson Sphere Program would be a game for me. What I didn’t expect, however, was the massive scope of the game.

If you haven’t played it—you really owe it to yourself to—Dyson Sphere Program basically drops you onto a planet in a bigger solar system, where you have to build up functioning factories to harvest the resources on the planet and tech up. Eventually, you’ll leave that planet to find others with different resources, then set up a massive solar system-spanning production line that eventually expands across the galaxy. All of this with one goal in mind: to build a Dyson Sphere, a megastructure that encircles and harnesses the power of a sun. To say the game is big is an understatement.

Recently Dyson Sphere Program received an update titled the Dark Fog that added combat via a new alien threat of self-replicating machines aptly called the Dark Fog.

I recently had the opportunity to speak with Zhou Xun, producer at developer YouthCat Games, about the Dark Fog update as well as the future of Dyson Sphere Program.

Destructoid: The new Dark Fog update is a very unique way to introduce combat to this already unique factory-building genre. What was the overall goal when adding Dark Fog to the game, and how did it get to its current state?

Zhou: The combat system was a key element of our original development plans, with The Dark Fog manifesting itself as a fleshed-out concept relatively early.

It was important that its role in the game made sense to the setting, so we landed on the concept of it being a self-replicating machine hive-mind, competing for energy to support the Centrebrain. Being an enemy that exists before the player begins their own Dyson Sphere Program, it creates an easy to believe and engaging conflict mechanic.

Once we locked