What is Sternwerk?

Sternwerk is a minimalistic single-player RTS game against a computer player opponent on randomly generated maps. It was made for the GameMaker's Toolkit Jam #1. As such, it makes heavy use of double-purpose design. For example, the traditional notions of territory, resources, unit factories etc. have all been unified into 'planets'. Furthermore, units not only are used for attacking, but are also used for 'settling' as well as speeding up production.

How to play

As soon as you start the game, you will see a blue circle surrounded by other, white circles. These are planets. They make up the entire territory of the game. Blue planets belong to you, orange planets to your opponent and white planets are neutral. Orbiting a planet you may see some basic shapes. These represent units. There are three types of units: Triangle, Square and Circle. Inside of each planet you can also see such a shape. This shape tells you what kind of unit can be built on this planet. To start building units on a planet, just select the planet and then click on the shape in the middle. This will take one of your units in orbit and repurpose it as a worker. The more workers you have on a planet, the faster will it build units. The current amount of progress is visible as a line going around the planet. Building units comes at a cost: It will deplete the planets resources. You can see how much are left inside the inner shape. Once you have built up a sufficient fleet, you can use it to attack neighboring planets (or send them to another one of your planets). To do this, select the planet which the fleet orbits around, and then click on one of the surrounding, yellow-outlined planets. (To cancel, you can just click anywhere else that is not a planet). When attacking, it is vital to know the strengths and weaknesses of all unit classes:

Triangles are good against Circles. 
Circles are good against Squares. 
Squares are good against Triangles. 

More planets will be uncovered as you go. To win the game, capture all of your opponents planets. And with that, you are ready to play! I hope you will enjoy it!

Where did Sternwerk get its name from?

'Sternwerk' is a neologism of the German words for 'Star' and 'Clockwork', hinting at the games visual appearance. It could however also be interpreted as a production facility in the stars, which incidentally pretty accurately describes the main mechanic of this game.