Dyson

Dyson is the free version of Eufloria and was made available as a competition entry a year and a half before the reworked commercial release. It is a strategy game, somewhat similar to Risk and the Galcon series, about colonizing asteroid belts, although the graphics do not resemble space but rather molecular structures. Player start with a single seed place on a lone asteroid. Soon, the seed grows into a Dyson tree, the game's resource. These generate new, self-replicating seeds, small insect-like objects that orbit the asteroid and are used to colonize other asteroids on the belt. The game supports zooming to show the entire asteroid field or as as close as a single seed. Each asteroid has a unique name and a different composition, based on three colours: energy, strength and speed. These influence the amount of seeds generated. When a sufficient amount of seeds orbits an asteroid, they can be offered to plant a new Dyson tree.

To colonize nearby asteroids, players select the amount of seedlings to send, and use the mouse to draw an arrow towards the asteroid. The seedlings will then be sent out as a fleet, destroy the opponent's seedlings, get rid of the Dyson tree and penetrate the core to colonize it. Certain asteroids will eventually drain and become useless. The game is completely real-time and there are different opponents who colonize and sent out swarms as well. The core of colonized asteroids changes to the colour of the team. Each team has seeds of a different shape, which affects the performance.

Strategy is based on managing resources, dividing seedlings over the different asteroids and fighting the opponents to gain more territory. All of the visuals except for the font and the palettes (and the location of UI elements) are generated procedurally.