{"rewrite":{"id":"r_9dff5a1ad23d33795e8f25ce","clusterId":"c_3a385cdf3cafbccd5acbec04","slug":"life-below-dev-on-aiming-for-a-city-builder-that-does-not-destroy-nature","model":"deepseek-v4-1-flash","headline":"Life Below Dev On Aiming For A City Builder That Does Not Destroy Nature","summary":"Megapop, the Oslo studio behind the coral reef management game Life Below, showed the title at Tokyo Game Show 2026 and gave a booth interview about its design. The game launched on PC via Steam on May 26, 2026, with Kasedo Games as publisher. Players act as Thalassa, a novice guardian in the form of a sea angel, who directs water fairies to build coral on rocky terrain and expand an ecosystem. Construction runs on two resources, coral matter and pearls, and power comes from moon coral that must sit within reach of other moon coral. Biodiversity gathered from resident marine life unlocks research and access to new zones, including fjords and submarine volcanoes, each with its own water temperature and pH level. Story events include heat waves and acidification that stress coral, answered with heat coral, cool coral, and alkali coral. Director and project manager Lise Hagen Lie said the team consulted marine biologists while keeping the genre's core loops intact.","whyItMatters":"The project replaces the genre's usual expansion-by-clearing with research and species variety as the gating currency, and its director says humans appear nowhere in the game at all.","webCardHtml":"\u003cp\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eMegapop is based in Oslo and has been running for 14 years, starting with mobile games before moving to Steam and home consoles six years ago with what director Lise Hagen Lie called \u0026#34;earth-friendly city-building simulations.\u0026#34;\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eThe project took three and a half years, with 12 in-house developers and 15 people total counting outside help for story and music.\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eLie cited Frostpunk as the biggest influence, along with The Wandering Village, IXION and Terra Nil, and said the base-building and expansion in StarCraft inspired her most.\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eHer reasoning for the theme: she grew up by the sea, her grandfather built boats, and Norway has the world\u0026#39;s largest cold-water coral reef, which she wanted more people to know about.\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eCoral can only be built on rocky ground because reefs need rock to grow, a rule the team worked out after talking with marine biologists.\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eLie said \u0026#34;humans do not appear at all\u0026#34; in the game, part of keeping its systems centered on nature.\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eMultiple difficulty levels were added to balance strategic feedback against the calm of looking over a world like a garden.\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eJapanese support was planned from the first year of development; after translators said the font was hard to read, Lie picked a new one herself.\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eShe does not want players to look anything up, saying \u0026#34;I didn\u0026#39;t want to make an educational game,\u0026#34; and would rather deliver \u0026#34;the surprise and curiosity of \u0026#39;There is such a world.\u0026#39;\u0026#34;\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eHer favorite sea creature is the coral crab; orcas are absent from the game but might be added later.\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003c/ul\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c/p\u003e","blueskyPost":"Life Below runs two resources, coral matter and pearls, and power that only travels between moon coral placed within reach of each other. Its no-destruction premise is enforced by adjacency, not by a green score.","twitterPost":"Life Below restricts power to moon coral placed within reach of other moon coral, so its no-destruction promise is a spacing rule, not a morality meter.","threadsPost":"Life Below handles its no-destruction premise with a grid constraint: power comes from moon coral that has to sit within reach of other moon coral. Director Lise Hagen Lie kept the genre's core loops, and the choice not to build a destruction economy is baked into placement.","newsletterBlurb":"Megapop brought its coral reef management sim Life Below to Tokyo Game Show 2026, and director Lise Hagen Lie explained how the studio swapped the genre's usual land clearing for biodiversity as the thing that unlocks everything. The game shipped on PC via Steam on May 26, 2026, published by Kasedo Games. The interview also covers the Norwegian cold-water reef that partly inspired the setting.","attributionJson":"[{\"source\":\"Game Spark\",\"url\":\"http://www.gamespark.jp/article/2026/10/08/173327.html\",\"title\":\"Aiming for a City-Building Sim That Doesn't Destroy Nature - Coral Reef Cultivation Sim 'Life Below' Play Report \\u0026 Interview [TGS2026]\"},{\"source\":\"Inside\",\"url\":\"https://www.inside-games.jp/article/2026/10/08/188935.html\",\"title\":\"Aiming for a City-Building Sim That Doesn't Destroy Nature - Coral Reef Cultivation Sim 'Life Below' Play Report \\u0026 Interview [TGS2026]\"}]","lintFlagsJson":null,"lintHits":0,"costUsd":0,"inputTokens":25946,"outputTokens":1422,"status":"published","repairAttempts":0,"nextRepairAt":null,"factsAttemptedAt":1791439631,"createdAt":"2026-10-08T06:03:15.000Z","publishedAt":"2026-10-08T06:06:07.000Z","updatedAt":"2026-10-08T06:06:07.000Z"},"cluster":{"id":"c_3a385cdf3cafbccd5acbec04","canonicalTitle":"「自然を破壊しない都市建設シムを目指した」サンゴ礁育成シム『Life Below』プレイレポ＆インタビュー【TGS2026】","representativeArticleId":"a_9e14db584001e351d6541736","sourceCount":2,"writtenSourceCount":2,"writeAttempts":0,"isSolo":false,"entitiesJson":"{\"anime_titles\":[],\"manga_titles\":[],\"work_titles\":[\"Life Below\"],\"studios\":[],\"people\":[],\"type\":\"review\",\"domain\":\"games\",\"is_roundup\":false}","contentType":"news","status":"published","firstSeenAt":"2026-10-08T03:00:03.000Z","lastSeenAt":"2026-10-08T03:25:02.000Z","updatedAt":"2026-10-08T06:06:06.000Z"},"attribution":[{"source":"Inside","url":"https://www.inside-games.jp/article/2026/10/08/188935.html","title":"「自然を破壊しない都市建設シムを目指した」サンゴ礁育成シム『Life Below』プレイレポ＆インタビュー【TGS2026】"},{"source":"Game Spark","url":"http://www.gamespark.jp/article/2026/10/08/173327.html","title":"「自然を破壊しない都市建設シムを目指した」サンゴ礁育成シム『Life Below』プレイレポ＆インタビュー【TGS2026】"}],"entities":{"anime_titles":[],"manga_titles":[],"work_titles":["Life Below"],"studios":[],"people":[],"type":"review","domain":"games","is_roundup":false},"keyFacts":["Life Below launched on PC via Steam on May 26, 2026, published by Kasedo Games and developed by the Norwegian studio Megapop.","Development of Life Below involved 12 in-house staff and 15 people including external contractors for story and music, and took three and a half years.","Players control Thalassa, a novice guardian, and instruct water fairies to build coral structures using two early resources, coral matter and pearls.","Energy in Life Below comes from moon coral and reaches only a fixed distance, with anything built outside that range nonfunctional.","Megapop conducted an interview with game director and project manager Lise Hagen Lie at its booth at Tokyo Game Show 2026."]}