Girls’ Civilization

Girls’ Civilization is a 2020 indie open-world real-time strategy and third-person shooter hybrid developed and published by Moondolino. While your previous inquiries have focused on massive, AAA genre-defining masterpieces like Homeworld and Command & Conquer, Girls’ Civilization represents a completely different corner of PC gaming: the wildly ambitious, intensely janky, and completely surreal world of solo indie development.

Often described by its cult community as an “anime-girl version of Mount & Blade,” the game attempts to blend massive, seamless open-world exploration with real-time army commanding and deep RPG customization. And, as the title implies, there are absolutely no men in this universe.

Gameplay and Ambitious Mechanics

The game attempts to punch way above its weight class. It operates on a massive, seamless map where towns and battles load without transitions.

Key gameplay mechanics include:

• RTS meets TPS: You control your main character from a third-person perspective, allowing you to physically fight on the front lines alongside your troops. However, you can seamlessly transition into a top-down RTS mode at any time to command your massive army, route squads, and manage logistics.
• The Economy of War: You must manage resources, train troops, and most importantly, pay your army daily. You can earn money by trading goods between cities, hunting, fishing, or taking the ultimate step: violently conquering and taxing rival cities.
• Block-Based Building: Surprisingly, the game features a voxel/block-based building system and landscape editing, allowing you to physically construct your own fortresses and outposts in the open world.
• Technological Evolution: Your army doesn’t stay stagnant. You start the game fielding infantry with medieval swords and pikes, but as you progress through the tech tree, you eventually unlock modern warfare, deploying fully functional tanks and machine guns against your enemies.

The Lore of the Ancients

Despite its quirky exterior, the game attempts to weave a massive, fully voice-acted (in Japanese) sci-fi narrative. The world was devastated by the “Anti AI War” seven hundred years ago. You play as Iwinya, an “Ancient” (a highly advanced military robot) who has been remanufactured by her captain, Krosa.

With her memory heavily corrupted, Iwinya only remembers three words of her ultimate mission: “destroy,” “hemisphere,” and “support forces.” She must travel the world, recruit companions, mingle with the four human factions, and uncover the truth behind her remanufacture.

Unprecedented Customization (and Janky Physics)

Where Girls’ Civilization truly gained its bizarre reputation is in its absurdly specific customization engine.

• The High Heels System: In an incredibly strange feat of programming, the game features a dedicated physics system purely for footwear. Every single pair of shoes and boots has unique height and ankle-angle data physically simulated into the engine.
• Deep Morphing: Every companion you recruit can be fully customized, from face morphing and body proportions to hair types. Furthermore, clothing supports deep texture mapping, allowing you to change materials to velvet, latex, or carbon fiber.

Development and Legacy

Released on Steam in January 2020, Girls’ Civilization was met with highly mixed reviews. To be completely candid: it is an incredibly unpolished game.

Reviewers consistently criticized its massive frame-rate drops, awful UI, confusing maps, and the fact that its massive towns often felt empty or populated by weird, asset-flipped NPCs. It is a game plagued by bugs, clipping cameras, and terrible optimization.

However, beneath the heavy layer of indie jank, many players found genuine charm. The sheer ambition of trying to build a seamless Mount & Blade-style sandbox combined with an anime aesthetic resonated with a very specific, niche audience. It did well enough for the solo developer to bizarrely churn out rapid-fire sequels (Girls’ Civilization 2 and Girls’ Civilization 3), though these sequels suffered from the exact same lack of polish and bizarre design pivots (like adding VR support and city-building mechanics).

Today, it stands as a fascinating oddity on the Steam storefront—a testament to what a solo developer with limitless ambition, a massive map, and a dream can achieve, even if the execution barely holds together.

Key Features:

• Anime Mount & Blade — Travel a massive, seamless open world, trading goods, recruiting companions, and laying siege to rival cities.
• Hybrid Combat — Seamlessly swap between shooting in third-person mode and commanding your massive army from a top-down RTS perspective.
• Absurd Customization — Tailor everything from body proportions and clothing materials to the physical ankle-angle of your characters’ high heels.
• Technological Warfare — Evolve your army’s arsenal from medieval pikes and swords all the way up to mechanized tanks.
• Indie Jank — Experience a wildly ambitious but heavily flawed solo-developed project, complete with bizarre physics and ragdoll explosions.

Release Platforms:

• Microsoft Windows (PC) — January 6, 2020 (Available on Steam).