Revive a vintage hydro-electric power station and generate power for the local township. Manage both on-site and township power demands, manage your funding levels and perform all manner of maintenance, upgrades and other duties.
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About
Realistic simulation of a 1930s-era vintage hydro-electric power station
Interact with vintage machinery and manage your fatigue levels - across day and night shifts
Realistic day and night cycle and player rest phases
Dynamic weather system - random fog, rain, thunder and lightning affecting game play
React to over three dozen (36+) unique demands for township power and get rewards (or not!)
Order supplies, monitor reserves and maintain oil levels and fuses
Research and apply over a dozen (12+) unique upgrades to enhance the power station
Maintain a series of power poles within the immediate area and ensure your power output is reliable
Reputation system - your actions can have long-lasting effects!
House-keeping requirements - wipe-up oil stains, clean windows and graffiti
Contend with multiple auditors who will occasionally visit and check your performance
Almost endlessly-varied game play and multiple game-ending events
Customize your experience! Adjustable difficulty settings means fun for both casual and 'hardcore' players alike
WELCOME TO HYDRO!
Get-to-grips with vintage machinery from yesteryear!
The local township has directed old No. 101 Hydro-electric Power Station be pressed back into duty and you're the sole custodian for the job!
Keep your wits: not only generating power quietly, without blowing fuses or starting fires, but also managing and maintaining your power station's supply levels (e.g. gear oil, fuses, battery acid) to keep it running smoothly.
You'll also need to manage your fatigue levels and work efficiently to stay profitable and keep your funding levels in the green - or risk shutdown by the township's council.
WHEN THE RIVER IS WILD...
Generate power day and night so long as the river is flowing fast. Your main goal in Hydro is to generate electricity for the Township whilst dealing with obstacles that come your way.
Work both day and night shifts, encounter unique events and township power demands based on the time of day.
CONNECT ("SYNC") TO THE TOWNSHIP POWER GRID
Use quick reflexes to connect to the township power grid! But be careful not to blow that Grid Fuse! Did you remember to order a spare grid fuse?
FEED POWER TO THE TOWNSHIP
The township is hungry for power, so Hydro must be ready to deliver! In addition, sometimes they'll need a helping hand with delivering peak-load power demands; thus, you'll be receiving 'Township Demands' from the township when there is a power shortage
Respond to over two-dozen such demands ranging from mayor press conferences and town carnivals all the way to popular radio shows in the evenings and new factory commissioning events.
Ensure your machinery and components are in tip-top shape and manage fatigue levels so that you can stay on-shift for the duration and generate the required power, otherwise you'll miss out on much-needed funding to stay afloat.
REPUTATION SYSTEM / NEWSPAPERS
As sole custodian of Hydro, start your career with the full support of the township! However, your shiny reputation rating is in danger of being chipped-away if you fail to make the grade.
Claw-back your reputation rating with careful management of the power plant!
Your negative actions may land you in the township's newspaper. Conversely, if you do a good job, you may just hear about it, too.
KEEP THE LIGHTS ON
Your power station will need its on-site battery accumulators charged so you can keep your own lights on. You'll be leaning on your trusty old generator once again to help make this happen.
Accumulators are not endlessly robust resources - they need care - charge them too fast and their 'condition' rating drops, meaning they won't charge efficiently (and in the worst case, will struggle to charge at all). As you charge the accumulators and run the local services such as power station lighting, you'll be wearing-out the local power fuses which will also need attention...
APPLY UPGRADES!
You'll be dealing with a lot of antiquated machinery, so by using your 'Upgrade Blueprint', you'll be able to bring the old power station into the modern age (almost), and make it perform better than ever before!
WHEN THINGS GO WRONG...
Watch that old Generator! It has a tendency to overheat and it may well just catch fire one day if you're not careful.
Destroying your generator ends your Hydro career. Emergency systems like the Generator Fire Control system - if primed and used promptly - might save your generator...this time.
Fail to lubricate machinery and the power station becomes host to a shower of sparks and a cacophony of noises and you may get noise complaints, some with monetary fines attached (but always affecting your reputation rating).
Fail to keep the accumulator maintained and it will struggle to take a healthy charge...this will have all sorts of ill-effects on your on-site power requirements.
Fail to keep your network of power poles maintained and you'll find your grid output will suffer frequent 'drop-outs' of power
Fail to generate sufficient funding and end up in excessive debt and you may find the township treasury department will take a keen interest in your power station and you'll even risk complete power station shutdown.
HOUSEKEEPING
You're responsible for the keeping the place presentable! Clean windows and wipe up oil stains before the auditor sees...and maybe wipe-off the occasional graffiti tag...
CALM DAYS / AUDITORS
On calm river days, perform maintenance like replacing or fixing fuses, cleaning power pole insulators, researching part upgrades, cleaning the air filter, oil stains and windows and keeping the machinery oil levels topped-up.
But keep an ear out for the auditor(s)! They'll fine you every chance they get if something isn't quite right. Some are more strict than others, and some are downright lazy. Use some creativity to keep them at-bay...
SHIPS PASSING IN THE NIGHT
Given the bulky machinery and narrow river banks, occasionally-passing ships will need lighting guidance in the form of marker lights along the river bank, which you'll need to maintain and manage.
MANAGE YOUR FATIGUE
As the sun dips down towards the horizon, you'll find a sleeping quarters to rest and recharge between shifts. Use the opportunity to address your fatigue levels and start the next shift...maybe take another stab at keeping the township powered-up?
DYNAMIC WEATHER
Weather effects are completely random and variable and the weather has an effect on your game play in the Hydro world...meaning that Mother Nature can both help (or hinder) you. For example:
Rain will soak newspapers but can also help clean certain electrical components like power line insulators.
If lightning strikes your power station (or you!), there will be certain variable consequences...
PLAY IT YOUR WAY
The Hydro experience is designed with both casual and 'hardcore' gamers in mind. Adjustable difficulty allows for a customizable experience! Don't like having those auditors on your back? Put them on strike! Disable or enable noise complaints at your whim, or close the shipping lane and focus purely on generating power. Choose daylight savings so your days are lengthened, and many other settings await your adjustment.
(ALMOST) ENDLESSLY-VARIED GAME PLAY!
In Hydro, things never go to plan and nothing ever happens the same way twice. Some fuses might wear faster than others, your oil levels may consume faster sometimes (and sometimes not), supply costs will fluctuate, funding rewards will vary and even Mother Nature will at times throw a curve-ball with its ever-changing river flow speeds and weather conditions. Maybe you'll get a strict auditor visit and fine you for an errant oil stain you forgot to clean-up...
Resting in between each shift (day or night) will randomly generate calm or fast-flowing river conditions in addition to the usual day/night cycle change and weather changes, so no play-through of the game is ever the same!
May the waters flow forever fast and your fuses last forever long...
Genres
Stats
All-time low is the lowest price we've recorded for this game since we started tracking it.
Languages: English**languages with full audio support
Reviews
If you love realism and simulators, you should definitely try this "game" This SIM was made with love by simmer, for simmers. Each update brings more and more detailed additions. You will definitely love your workplace, and the order of actions.
Hydro is something unique and refreshing! I don't think I've seen this particular 'genre' covered before and it's not related to games I normally play, but it drew me in after a while! The things that appealed to me was going back to the power station day after day in-game and trying to keep myself afloat funds-wise and generally keep the place running and maintained without it burning down (or getting shutdown). Aside from generating power as you might expect to do, the little details like maintaining the power pole insulators, cleaning the windows and even oil stains in the power station will keep you busy. Some areas to improve could be that when you accept a Township Demand, you 'lose' the info regarding what it was for once you accept it (the only info you get is the countdown of power units to achieve). It would be nice to have the info about what power demand you're trying to achieve is (e.g. the township carnival or mayor conference) after you've accepted it. Still, only a minor thing and maybe easily added in future. I'll keep an eye on future updates as the dev has said they want to continue adding more to the game in the future as well.
Wonderful concept and admittedly a pretty good execution for being as early as it is in its development, the only "problems" I've found so far are that the ladders for the air filter and power poles seem to be a bit finicky and hard to climb at times and the only way to reset your fatigue is to end your shift through sleeping which means possibly failing your township demands by 10 or less units, i did see in the roadmap that there are plans of a coffee machine or something of the sorts so that's most likely already being dealt with. I will say again the "problems" I've found really aren't big issues at all and they don't really effect gameplay other than being frustrating at times.
Played the demo a while ago and instantly bought the full game when i saw that it was released, definitely feels much more polished :) I think a sandbox/freeplay mode would be nice, where we don't have to worry about money, requests, audits, or literally anything. Infinite money, research points and whatnot, where we can just enjoy running the plant with the occasional ship or something.
interesting game, small glitches along the way and needs to be optimised as my 3070TI is running at 99% in the game at all times. I work in a hydro station and this is quite realistic!
Nice and immersive. For Nerds like me, it´s a lot of fun!
A fun plate-spinning game about managing a tiny vintage hydro-electric power plant. Scratches a similar itch to games like Nuclears, albiet being much less complex, which isn't a bad thing.
I quite like the sound design and operation. A few things I don't like... The generator should reach thermal equilibrium and it doesn't. I hate this because it makes it near impossible to do anything. I HATE the fatigue mechanic, it goes up way too fast while literally just standing in place. I severely hope that the shift mechanic from the water works game gets back ported to this one. That would be huge! Aside from that, it's pretty dang good. Tutorial broke when trying to fix the fuse so I never learned how to do the ships. I just turned that mechanic off. Wonderful sound design!
Love my little power plant. Great QoL updates from the dev regularly. Awesome game to relax with.
There are decent numbers of job simulators on machine operations and this is one of a niche power plant operator games but a pretty interesting one. Instead of running the advanced nuclear power plant, you are tasked with managing the ancient hydro power station that has its own quirks and challenges. Gameplay is pretty enjoyable and not too complicated even to me who have zero knowledge about this kind of work. You just need to know how to operate it and there are not a lot of things to keep track on. Graphics system requirement is quite heavy. I have to dial down the settings to almost everything outside the texture to avoid blurry texts and be able to run the game at 60 fps. I feel that the game is still a bit lacking but there are features I saw in the road map that are quite promising. I think the game has some potential and rooms to improve. Overall, it's worth the recommendation from me.
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