Starcorp Tycoon — Build a corporate empire across the stars

Trailer

See it in motion

The story

Corporate Service

The ending: Charter granted, with THE CHAIR’s last word

It is 2246, and you did something ridiculously petty. Reserved a whole orbital lounge with one towel for eleven days. Returned a library holo-book 214 years late. Parked a cargo hauler across three docking bays. The fine is absurd, and you will never pay it.

So THE CHAIR — a tiny, ancient ant judge on an enormous throne, with a gavel the size of a toothpick — offers the alternative: Corporate Service. You may choose. (You may not.) Her clerk Vael translates the clicks.

You get Licence N: StarCorp, an empty government shell company, dropped into a closed market run by up to seven established corporations. Grow it until it counts as one of them and the licence becomes a charter: the company is yours. Meanwhile the news, the café and your rivals quote your record at every turn.

Five ways it ends

01

Charter granted

StarCorp is yours, and so is your freedom. THE CHAIR: “Congratulations. You are now an incumbent. Tomorrow we draft an outsider against you.”

02

Monopoly

Every rival is gone: you are the whole market. THE CHAIR: “You are now the market. Tomorrow we break you up.”

03

The market is closed

A rival reaches the winning share first. The purpose of your licence has lapsed; you keep no debts. THE CHAIR: “The shell will be issued again. They always are.”

04

Licence revoked

The banks pull the plug. The fine returns with interest — and you chip ice in the Debtor’s Belt. THE CHAIR: “Mind the ice. It is also evidence.”

05

Sentence served

Twenty years, no charter. You are free to go — with a cardboard box. THE CHAIR: “Your box is by the door. The plant is regulation.”

The game

One sector. Eight corporations. One drink to rule them all.

You run StarCorp, makers of Gulst. Every week each inhabited world picks its drink on taste, kick, health, price and how hard the brand has been pushed — and every week your rivals get a little better at it. Hold 45 % of the market at a year-end — more if you face fewer rivals — and your licence becomes a charter: StarCorp is yours, and so is your freedom. Run out of credit and you are out.

01

Explore

Scan star systems, survey planets and moons, and find out where the customers live, where the metal lies and where the ice is.

02

Build

Found stations, fill them with factories, labs and marketing modules, line up the next builds and keep your robot fleet running.

03

Trade

Mine metal, melt ice, and buy and sell on a live marketplace where every trade moves the price.

04

Win

Research better recipes, send sales agents, run campaigns, sign sponsors — and take the market from up to seven AI rivals.

A trade envoy looks out over a newly charted system

The sector map: every charted system in its own star's nebula

Chart the sector

26 star systems, and you know one

The sector starts dark. Send scans to chart systems and survey their worlds; every system you chart lights up its own corner of the map with the sky of its star, from red-dwarf rust to blue-giant glow. Then decide where to plant your flag: a habitable world full of thirsty customers, an asteroid belt full of metal, or a frozen moon full of water.

Every world has its own people, wealth and taste
Sales agents travel between systems, and distance matters
What you don't know about your rivals, you have to find out

The planet view: market figures, your station and the café one click away

Zoom in

From the whole sector down to one world

Scroll in on a star system and watch its planets turn around their sun, each with its people, its deposits and who sells there. Scroll once more and one world fills the screen, all of it on one page with nothing below the fold: every figure your Trade Office can see, down to each rival's exact weekly sales and price, what its people want, and whose agents are working the crowd.

Sector map → system → planet → your station, with the mouse wheel
The better your Trade Office, the more you see
Your station and the local café one click away, right under the planet

A station's site and modules, with its build queue

Build stations

Robots don't sleep. They do break.

Each station is a puzzle of modules — factory, lab, marketing, trade office, training and discovery center. Staff them with robots that run on power and water, overclock them when demand spikes, and pay for it in wear. A station builds one thing at a time, so line up the rest in its build queue.

Six module types, each upgradeable
A build queue per station, each build paid when it starts
Power prices differ per star. Run the fleet hot, or run it long

Mine & trade

Metal builds. Water brews.

Buy what you need on the marketplace or dig it up yourself. A mine on a good deposit pays for itself in a couple of years; upgrade one on a poor deposit and you will never see that money again. Rivals trade on the same market — when everyone builds, metal gets expensive.

A live market with prices that respond to every trade
Mines and ice extractors, upgradeable in five tiers
Sell your surplus by hand, or automatically above a stock level you set

Research

From cane sugar to quantum sweetener

Taste, Kick and Health: every world weighs them differently, and the bar rises as the sector improves. Research 25 technologies — new ingredients, packaging and bottling lines — and decide which customers you are making Gulst for. Neglect what a world wants and it drinks somebody else's can.

The executive assistant in the StarCorp head office

HQ & staff

Train the people who run it

Your first station is your headquarters. Consult your heads of finance, logistics, marketing and research whenever you like — and invest in their training. Trained management makes every department cheaper, smarter and safer, and gives sharper advice. Your executive assistant tells you what matters most the moment you walk in. Your rivals train their people too.

Four departments, three levels each
Advice from basics to forecasts and scenarios
A training fee once, a salary every week

Sponsors & collabs

Fame is a marketing channel

Sign the stars of the sector — and hope they behave. A good season lifts your brand across their fan base. A scandal does the opposite, and then you decide: stand by them, or drop them. Twelve sponsors, six limited-edition collabs, and none of them entirely safe.

The Static

Holo-band of four members — all Nico Static. Biggest act on the most crowded worlds.

"Concert cancelled: band needs a firmware update."

Captain Brakkus

Hologram chef, enormous, bellowing. His cooking show runs on every capital world.

"Brakkus pairs Gulst with comet stew. Ratings explode, so does the stew."

Sir Reginald

A small, intelligent space slime with a tiny top hat. Everybody knows him; nobody quite loves him.

"Sir Reginald eats a sponsor's delivery shuttle."

Gas Giant Surf Pro Tour

Kai rides storms the size of planets. Gas-giant systems watch every wave.

"Surf star admits it was all a holo-sim."

Collab · Umami Blast

A limited edition with Captain Brakkus. Reckless. Possibly brilliant.

"Tastes of fish soup and herring. Brakkus: 'That is the point.'"

Hyperdrive Edition at a shipyard showroom

Collab · Hyperdrive Edition

With Starwright Shipyards, displayed like a jewel in the showrooms of the richest worlds.

"So fast it sold out before the shops opened."

GNN, the Galaxy News Network, in its studio

GNN · Galaxy News Network

The galaxy is weird. Plan accordingly.

Solar flares, ice strikes, heat waves, a toddler whose first word is "Gulst". GNN brings it all to you: a red ticker under the game and TV-style lower thirds for Breaking News and the Markets, taking turns in one spot. World events bend demand, prices and power for weeks at a time — read out by the anchor, with the effect spelled out so you can react.

40 event cards, good and bad
Choose your Fortune: Off, Kind, Fair, Harsh or Wild
A live news studio, a red ticker and bulletins that never stop talking

The Orbit Lounge, a café in orbit with its bartender

The café

Every world has a bar. Every bar has a rumour.

Wherever you have a station or a sales agent, the local café is one click from the planet: a chic orbital lounge, a rough miners' bar, a frontier saloon or a spaceport diner. The bartender pours the market leader's drink and tells you what your rivals are up to — usually. In the back room metal and water change hands under the counter. And there are games: Nebula Slots, Robot Run, the Comet Race, and Ore Dice against Queen Halda's miners.

Rumours about rivals — buy a round and they are more reliable
A black market with inspectors, and a freighter captain you probably shouldn't trust
Four games of chance and a travelling bookie who takes bets on the sponsors' seasons
Every café its own dice table, bookie's counter and back room — and the clock stops while you are inside
Its own music, a crowd you can hear and characters who talk

Your rivals

Seven corporations want your customers

Each AI rival has its own personality, its own drink and its own idea of a fair price: Kessler sells cheap, Orbital sells premium, Perihelion starts price wars. Face one to seven of them and set each one's level, from Beginner to Lots of Pain. The year-end review shows where you stand, with the change on the year before for every figure.

GulstStarCorp · you

VytaHelixx Dynamics

FlareNova Ltd

ApogeeOrbital Inc

DebrisKessler Heavy Ind.

L5Lagrange Collective

ScorchPerihelion Group

ColdfrontOort & Sons

After 1.0

Expansion packs

New markets for StarCorp, each with its own product and tech tree — and its own twist on the game. In the works; click a card for the teaser.

Media

Screenshots

Early Access

Play it now. Help shape what comes next.

Starcorp Tycoon is complete and playable from your first week to the twentieth year — and it keeps growing. One independent developer, a new version every few weeks, and every update is free for everyone who bought the game, up to 1.0 and after.

Buy now for €14.95, the Early Access price: from version 1.0 the game costs €19.99. Every update until then and after stays free for you.

NowTake Command: a new interface from sector map to factory floor with holodeck stations and a page per world, 11 scenarios from THE CHAIR, online leaderboards (beta), a MONOPOLY ending and Storm the Keep. Since 0.9.4.2 also in Italian, Polish and Turkish, with a control room on the factory floor and research you look at before you queue it. 0.9.4.3 gives every talking character new, smoother lip sync, and 0.9.4.4 rebuilds almost every management screen and adds 64 achievement badges, and 0.9.4.5 gives every bar and figure one house style and recalibrates the sector with real astrophysics.
Next · 0.9.5First steps and the economy: a clearer start (you build your first factory, the game opens up step by step), real cost prices, and tech effects balanced so only a whole branch reaches the top. Trade follows in its own release, 0.9.5.x: local exchanges and a trade hub, transport with pirates and insurance, rare ores.
0.9.6The full story: hearings every three years and licence conditions per CEO.
1.0The Steam launch.
After 1.0Expansion packs, starting with KIXIK: a new market, product and tech tree each.

See what changed in every version

Get the game

Try it free. Keep it for €14.95.

The demo is the complete game on a time budget. When you buy, the full game picks up your demo saves exactly where you left them.

Free demo

€0

The complete game — every system, tech, sponsor and event
3 new games, 60 minutes of play each (the clock only counts while the game runs)
Saves carry over to the full game
Play time limited

Windows macOS · Apple Silicon macOS · Intel

Windows 10/11 (64-bit) · macOS 11 or later. On Windows, the installer is code-signed by Van den Ing Webmarketing. On a Mac: unzip, drag the app to Applications and open it — it is signed and notarised by Apple.

Full game

€14.95 incl. VAT · one-time

Early Access price. From version 1.0 the game costs €19.99.

No limits: play as long and as often as you like
Windows and macOS — one purchase, all platforms
In 13 languages — switch any time in Settings
One-time purchase — no subscription, no ads
Continues your demo saves

FAQ

Questions

Is the game finished? What does Early Access mean?

The game is complete: you can play a whole 20-year game, win or lose, in both rule sets. Early Access means it is still growing — a new version every few weeks, free for everyone who bought it, with your feedback on Discord shaping what comes next. Details on the expansion packs follow nearer their release.

How does the demo work?

The demo is the full game. You can start 3 new games, and each one gets 60 minutes of play. Time only counts while the game clock runs — pausing, menus and reading reports are free. You can save, quit and load a demo game until its 60 minutes are used.

Can I keep playing my demo game after buying?

Yes. The full game uses the same save files, so it continues your demo games exactly where you are — without limits.

Which platforms are supported?

Windows 10 and 11 (64-bit), and macOS 11 or later on Apple Silicon and Intel Macs. One purchase gives you all three downloads.

Which languages does the game speak?

The game is in 13 languages: English, Dutch, German, French, Spanish, Brazilian Portuguese, Italian, Polish, Turkish, Russian, Simplified Chinese, Japanese and Korean. It starts in the language of your computer, and you can switch any time in Settings.

macOS says the app can't be opened. What now?

Since version 0.8.4 the game is signed and notarised by Apple, so it opens like any other app. If macOS still warns you, you have an older download: get the latest version with your download link. Open the game from Applications, not from the Downloads folder.

How do I get the full game after paying?

Right after payment you land on your download page, and the same link is emailed to you. The link keeps working for future updates. Lost it? Use "Send it again" with the email address you bought with.

Can I get a refund?

Because the game is delivered digitally and immediately, the 14-day right of withdrawal ends once your download is available — you agree to that when buying. If the game does not work on your computer, mail us and we will sort it out.

Windows says "Windows protected your PC". Is that safe?

Yes. The Windows installer is code-signed by Van den Ing Webmarketing, the company behind VDIW Game Studios. Windows SmartScreen trusts a new signature only after enough people have installed it, so a first download may still show this warning for a while: choose "More info", check that the publisher is Van den Ing Webmarketing, then "Run anyway". Updates from inside the game do not show this warning again.

How do updates work?

On Windows and macOS the main menu shows "Update now" when a new version is out: one click downloads, checks and installs it and restarts the game. A Mac asks once to be linked to your purchase: the "Link to my game" button on your download page does that (from version 0.9.3.5; in an older version, use "Paste link" in the game). Updates are free — see what changed.

How much does the full game cost?

€14.95 or $14.95 including VAT, one-time. No subscription, no ads, all updates included.

Is there a multiplayer mode?

Not yet. Starcorp Tycoon is a single-player game against one to seven AI corporations, each with its own personality and a difficulty level you choose.