Oxygen Not Included is a creative strategy game where you build an underground colony for survivors of a spaceship crash-landing. You need to manage everything, placement and planning for oxygen distribution, energy, plumbing and living arrangements. It offers a demanding and strategic experience where your every action has a consequence yet still allows for creativity and ingenuity to shine through.

When a spaceship malfunctions and crashes on a desolate alien planet, the crew-mates flee into the caves, where they find pockets of oxygen, plant life and water. Starting slowly, you build out basic infrastructure and living areas, then expand your settlement into nearby caves. You start with few resources and must use them to build out essential machines to ensure your survival, like oxygen regenerators and heaters, as well as contraptions that generate usable energy. Eventually, you either end up with a thriving colony, or die due to lack of necessary provisions.

Rather than directly controlling things, you issue commands to the crew-mates to operate machines, grow crops, fix malfunctions, and build tunnels. Your automation must balance your manpower to ensure you have enough food, water, heat and oxygen to survive. Each crew-mate has a unique set of attributes which makes the more suited to doing certain tasks. You can also see the flow of oxygen and heat around your base in real-time and must ensure your civilians don't suffocate, freeze or boil. Managing your infrastructure of gas, liquid and electricity pipes as you grow to ensure all the people's needs are fulfilled is a top priority and requires careful and strategic growth.

The result is a unique take on the city-building genre that demands careful calculation and caution, but also pushes you to come up with novel and inventive solutions to the many problems you face through experimentation and ambition.