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Tech

Cook Meth and Build a Drug Empire in This Breaking Bad Simulator

I knock, you knock, we all knock for blue rock.

I am the one who knocks, but you can too with Basement, an upcoming PC game I can most succinctly describe as a Breaking Bad simulator.

It's a management game much like SimCity, though it looks much more like developer OpenBook's unsung masterpiece SimTower.

It gives you a cross-section view of a budding drug dealing operation. You start out small, with a marijuana grow room and maybe some muscle to keep your supply safe, but slowly expand, digging more rooms underground and investing in more expensive and illicit drug manufacturing hardware.

Eventually, you'll have a whole army of tweakers in those signature yellow chemical suits cooking up heroin, acid, and speed, and a fleet of totally not-suspicious-at-all ice cream trucks driving around the bad parts of town to unload the goods with the appropriate dealers. Sometimes, the cops will show up, and you can either pay them off or have your bodyguards kill them, assuming you've hired and leveled up enough dudes in tight black t-shirts

Basement is being developed by Halfbus. It created a prototype during game development marathon competition Ludum Dare 29, which had the theme of "beneath the surface," hence all the underground drug making. It then successfully funded a full game on Kickstarter and secured a place on the digital storefront Steam via Greenlight, where players can vote on which games they'd like to see added to the store.

Last week, Halfbus finally released a very early, unfinished version of Basement. It took me about an hour to start manufacturing the highest quality drugs and earn enough cash to take over the town, at which point the game ends. It's fun though, and if Halfbus keeps expanding on this concept like it promises it will (bigger town, random events, research trees with more drug making tools, and more), it'll be a worthy Breaking Bad simulator.

You can get Basement for $9 from Steam Early Access, or play the original Ludum Dare prototype here.