Hands on with Glu Mobile's new 'The Jetsons meets SimCity' social game Space City

While it's built its reputation on action 3D games such as Gun Bros. and Contract Killer, Gun Mobile is now pushing out into the more traditional time management genres too - albeit while maintaining 3D graphics.

At its recent preview event, it announced three such games: Space City, Circus City and Wildlife Safari.

Developed by Escalation Studios, Space City is something of a departure for the Texas outfit, previously best known for its iOS work on Doom Resurrection.

Created using the Unity engine, it's labeled as 'The Jetsons meets SimCity' by senior producer David Kozlowski.

Above and beyond

You start the game choosing one of four races - human, starling, puggle or dondee - each of which enables unique buildings and attributes. You then build out your space city on a floating asteroid, harvesting resources from your buildings in the process.

The more buildings you create, the more tourists you'll attract to your city. Hand-in-hand with this are the workers you're provided with. You set these to work in your buildings to harvest faster.

Obviously, using more aliens in the types of buildings they're attuned to will speed harvesting but Kozlowski says that there's a 'special sauce' combination for each building.

"We're not going to provide that information but let players experiment and share it," he explains. "When you get the combination just right, you'll really supercharge your performance."

Also keeping you interested in the action will be the ambient animations within your city, which will have hover cars floating about and aliens flying around on jetpacks. Thanks to the 3D graphics, you'll be able zoom in to follow individuals on their travels.

Increasing the social aspects of the game, you'll also be able to visit your friends' space cities, eventually creating buildings that because of their choice of species, they might not have access to.

Due to be released in July for iOS (and expected later for Android), Space City will be supported with new content every two weeks post-launch.