Life Below is a city-building game developed by the Norwegian indie team Megapop using Unity’s DOTS/ECS technology. Interestingly, it doesn’t follow the established paradigms of many traditional city-builders, instead designing its gameplay primarily around marine ecosystem simulation.
In this game, expansion isn’t the primary goal. Instead, players focus on creating conditions for life to thrive within their coral reefs. Various marine lives reproduce and interact within the player’s reef, and players must adjust environmental data to ensure ecological sustainability and resilience against ecological disasters.
This unique gameplay gives Life Below an experience distinct from many similar titles. To explore this, we interviewed Executive Producer Jørgen Tharaldsen at Tokyo Game Show 2026, asking him to share the philosophy behind this “anti-traditional” builder.
Here are the details of the interview:
Q: Many marine creatures in the game aren’t just for观赏 (viewing); they also perform functions like cleaning waste, handling disasters, and improving the ecosystem. How did you decide what ecological role each creature should play in the game?
Jørgen:This is actually one of the core principles Life Below has held since the beginning. We didn’t want fish and other creatures to be mere decorations swimming around your reef. We wanted you to care when a new species arrives—because it has practical significance for the ecosystem you’re building.
We collaborated with marine biologists to observe what animals actually do in nature: some clean, some hunt, some graze on algae, some participate in nutrient cycling, and some help control population sizes. Then we asked ourselves: How can we translate these into mechanics that players can understand and utilize?
Sometimes—especially early in development—we actively searched for creatures that fit the ecological niches required by our gameplay. For instance, if we needed sources of “energy” and “food,” or any metric common in city-builders, we would research and ask marine biologists, “Can you give examples of organisms occupying this niche in an ecosystem?” In most cases, there were plenty of creatures fulfilling specific roles, and then it was up to us to find a suitable match, create the art, and build the systems and design around it.
Of course, we simplify things. This is a game, not a 100% scientific simulation. But wherever possible, this fantasy is rooted in reality. I think that’s the magic of nature: you don’t need to invent much from scratch, as nature itself is full of crazy systems and astonishing relationships.
Another point I think is important—we hope players gradually realize that every creature has its place, without us spelling it out explicitly. When your reef starts teeming with life, it’s not just becoming prettier; it’s becoming an ecosystem, just like in real nature.
Q: During the design process, did you encounter situations where real marine ecological laws were sound but didn’t make for fun game mechanics?
Jørgen:Too many to count!
Nature doesn’t care if it makes for good game design. It can be slow, unfair, astonishingly complex, and sometimes nearly unpredictable. If we simulated Everythinggj realistically, I’m not sure many people would want to play.
So, our principle was never that Everythinggj had to be scientifically precise, but that it had to feel believable. And we spared no effort in drawing inspiration from reality. But whenever fun clashed with realism, we established early on that fun comes first.
We did collaborate with scientists (especially early on), but then we had to make game design decisions—which, honestly, they didn’t fully grasp. So, in the end, we compressed timelines, simplified species relationships, and made cause-and-effect much clearer than in the real ocean. Sometimes, we even employed a touch of magical realism (laughs).
We also actively avoided certain things, like fish eating fish—with a few exceptions. The reason is simple: it could lead to a terrible player experience. Imagine leaving your screen for an hour and returning to find your reef empty, save for one satisfied, well-fed fish—that’s not fun at all.
For us, the important thing isn’t to give players a textbook lesson, but to spark their curiosity.
Q: You define the game as reinterpreting city-building from nature’s perspective, but city-building is a genre heavily focused on artificial planning, which seems somewhat contradictory to the free-flowing ecology of nature. How did you approach this contradiction during development?
Jørgen:This contradiction is actually one of the reasons we made this game.
Most city-builders revolve around expansion and extraction. You claim space, harvest resources, build more, produce more, and optimize Everythinggj to the extreme. We love city-builders, but we wanted to flip this script and ask: What if you built from nature’s perspective?
We still retained the building component, and it’s quite comprehensive. You still make decisions and build systems. But you’re mostly creating and constructing the conditions for life to survive, and then nature takes over—animals migrate, species interact, ecological disasters strike, and imbalances occur if something is too abundant or scarce. Changes you make in one area might cause problems elsewhere. In short, we wanted to simulate underwater life, just not to an extreme, because that wouldn’t be fun.
For me, this is one of the most interesting concepts in Life Below: you have power, but you’re not the ultimate controller; you’re helping something grow. This is a vastly different fantasy compared to conquering a map.
Q: The most unique aspect of Life Below is that while expanding your territory, players must constantly balance the relationships between temperature, pH, food, energy, and biodiversity. This seems to contradict the pursuit of optimal solutions typical in this genre. How did you handle this conflict in practice?
Jørgen:This is also something we deliberately wanted to challenge.
In many strategy games, there’s eventually a correct answer, and players are very good at finding it: you figure out the optimal production chain, layout, construction method, and timing. Once you understand it, the whole system becomes a solvable puzzle.
But nature doesn’t work that way.
A healthy ecosystem is about relationships and resilience. If you push one variable to the extreme, you might harm others—more of a good thing isn’t always better. And sometimes, what worked yesterday fails today due to changing conditions.
So, temperature, pH, food, energy, and biodiversity aren’t five independent stats you just max out; they influence each other.
Of course, players will still optimize—they always do, and I almost always do myself in any game. But we hope Life Below sometimes prompts you to ask a different question: not “How can I maximize profit?” but “What does this ecosystem need right now?”
This slight shift in thinking was very important to us. It also brought a benefit: we could keep earlier areas interesting and dynamic even when players revisited them. For example, you might feel you’ve created a perfect little paradise in one area, but when you leave for other, more “urgent” regions, nature doesn’t stand still. It evolves and changes. The extent of this change depends on how you play and the difficulty you choose, but we aimed for a subtle balance between dynamic life and the optimization and clear paths that city-builder players enjoy.
Q: Disasters are a key event system in the game, but player opinions on them are mixed—some feel they add genuine challenge to ecological restoration, while others think they come too suddenly, causing significant damage before players have unlocked solutions. How do you balance these two aspects?
Jørgen:This was probably one of the hardest things for us to balance—and I think it’s also where players criticized us the most. Some of that criticism was very valid and allowed us to re-examine the game with fresh eyes.
Disasters are important because without pressure, many systems lose their meaning: if temperature never changes, why should players care about it? If pollution never poses a threat, why build resilience against it?
But there’s a world of difference between challenge and deliberate punishment.
We repeatedly adjusted and balanced this aspect based on player feedback. One lesson learned is that players need to understand what’s happening, receive some warnings, and ideally understand what they could have done differently. If the only answer is that you hadn’t unlocked the solution yet, that’s obviously frustrating. We tried various ways to set thresholds so you wouldn’t face true challenges until you had (or were close to having) a solution—but in this regard, we did sometimes make the difficulty too high.
At the same time, we didn’t want every problem to be completely predictable, because nature isn’t like that.
This is a balance we continue to refine. I don’t believe there’s a perfect setting for every player, which is partly why “Peace Mode” is important. Especially with the recent “Play Your Way” update, we gave players tools to reduce complexity or simply make the game more relaxed and healing.
Q: In subsequent updates, you added “Peace Mode,” allowing players to build their territories without worry. However, from the initial design, understanding natural ecology and dealing with ecological disasters were meant to play key roles. Without threats, the game essentially becomes building a giant aquarium. How do you view this change, which seems to contradict the original design intent?
Jørgen:I understand why you’d say that, and I must say, that’s a great question!
But knowing our journey, I don’t think it contradicts our original intent. For us, “Peace Mode” was on the roadmap from early on, but as a 12-person indie team, we had to make trade-offs to deliver the best game possible at launch.
We’ve seen too many games launch with bugs or unbalanced designs, so long before launch, we decided where to focus our resources and energy, cutting, delaying, or saving other features for later. Peace Mode—or the more “sandbox-like” experience—was part of that group. Now that they’ve all been added, I think we’ve indeed delivered on our plan.
Somewhat surprisingly to us, so many people just wanted that peaceful experience. That’s a lesson in game development—what we want and what players want don’t always align perfectly at launch (laughs). But for players seeking that experience, I firmly believe in the value of this version of Life Below.
And this is something our entire team was particularly cautious about—we didn’t want to be another voice spreading “despair and gloom, saying the Earth is doomed.” Instead, we wanted to advocate hope and opportunity, inspiring people to learn more about the ocean. Ultimately, we aim to be a small, positive cog in the huge machine of humanity, pushing the future toward a more balanced direction.
We don’t presume to draw conclusions for players. So, what we strive to do is let people personally experience the beauty and wonder of the ocean and see how Everythinggj is interconnected, hoping to spark curiosity and an emotional connection to marine life.
For some players, this feeling comes from resolving an ecological crisis; for others, it’s the moment a dolphin finally visits the reef they spent hours crafting.
Both are meaningful. And I’m really happy that we can now cater to both types of players.
Q: Life Below’s visuals emphasize the transformation of the reef from barren to thriving, giving the game a unique charm through this ecological evolution. However, after launch, while many players loved the art style, they also felt that you sacrificed UI information clarity for the sake of aesthetics. How do you view this conflict between beauty and utility?
Jørgen:This criticism does hold some truth.
We wanted the reef itself to be the protagonist, encouraging you to gaze at your own world rather than staring at spreadsheets and interface panels throughout the game. Watching a barren stretch of sea slowly transform into a colorful, vibrant ecosystem is one of the game’s most fundamental rewards.
But Life Below has also become a fairly complex simulation. Once you have temperature, pH, food, energy, biodiversity, species needs, and all these interacting systems, communicating them clearly becomes extremely important.
There were indeed areas where we didn’t convey information well enough. Since launch, we’ve made significant UI and UX improvements, largely thanks to player feedback.
To clarify—this isn’t to refute your point (which is valid)—we also added numerous accessibility features and supported controllers from very early on (making controllers fun and intuitive in this type of game has always been a challenge). We scrutinized every pixel, placement, and line of layout in our UI/UX countless times, having endless discussions about what was “best”—and compromises were inevitable.
But personally, I’d rather face the challenge of clearly conveying a beautiful, vibrant world than let the world itself become subservient to the interface—that’s absolutely not what we wanted.
Of course, the goal is to have both, and hopefully, it has improved by now.
Q: In the game, players face an entire underwater ecosystem with a massive number of interacting marine creatures. While the visuals look quite healing, there must be complex technical challenges behind the scenes. What was the biggest challenge you faced during development? Were there any game designs you had to abandon due to technical limitations?
Jørgen:The interesting thing about Life Below is that it looks quite serene and peaceful, but underneath, it’s performing an astonishing amount of technical work. I guess that’s also why Unity has recommended us on their official social channels multiple times—because we’re trying to solve entirely new types of challenges.
We wanted a reef that could host thousands of lives, where these creatures weren’t just visual effects but had behaviors, needs, and relationships with the environment and other species. Meanwhile, the ecosystem itself was constantly changing, and all of this had to happen while keeping the game responsive and smooth.
This is also one of the reasons we built our simulation around Unity’s DOTS/ECS technology. It allows us to handle a massive number of entities and systems, but it also means we’re building a game using technology that was evolving alongside our development process.
It was difficult. Aside from Unity, we had little to rely on. We did share experiences with peers, such as Stunlock Studios, who also use DOTS, but ultimately, we were fighting this battle alone—because we simply didn’t know of any other developer who had made something like ours (there likely are, perhaps in China, but we weren’t aware).
Of course, some ideas were scaled back, changed, or abandoned due to excessive complexity. Often, the real limitation wasn’t just that computers couldn’t handle it; the harder question was whether we could simulate something while also communicating it clearly to players and keeping it fun?
Meeting all these requirements is far more difficult than simply creating a technically complex simulation.
That said—speaking here as team manager Jørgen, not as a developer—we have some extremely curious developers eager to tackle tough problems. One of my main responsibilities, along with Game Director Lise, is to support their exploration and lay the groundwork for it. Lise even created a project management system specifically for “these kinds of things”: before a programmer dives down the rabbit hole of technical innovation, we allow them to stay there for about two weeks (laughs), and then bring them back into the sunlight. If that hole leads to a dead end or confusing forks, we revert to the last known working configuration.
Q: Last year, you brought the game’s demo to Tokyo Game Show, and this year you brought the full release. Looking back at the year from demo to launch, did any feedback from global players truly change Life Below?
Jørgen:Many. I must say, we sincerely appreciate every piece of player feedback we received. We took advice from the developers of The Wandering Village and added an in-game communication system—so, as we began releasing demos and beta tests, we actually gathered a lot of excellent feedback based on real gameplay experiences.
One great fortune for Life Below was that the community became part of the development process early on. The first demo brought us thousands of players who suddenly started interacting with systems we had stared at for too long, immediately spotting issues we had overlooked.
Some feedback led to adjustments in balance or usability, while more interesting feedback sometimes changed how we thought about the game itself: players wanted more freedom, better ways to understand what was happening in their ecosystems, and many just wanted to spend more time purely building.
This feedback didn’t stop at launch, so we’ve continued to make numerous UX improvements, giving players more autonomy to decide how they want to experience their reef. This was driven both by player requests and our own observations of how players and streamers engaged with the game.
For example, Japan was particularly interesting to us. Letting Japanese players vote for species and then actually adding the “Japanese Snow Crab” and “Japanese Seahorse” into the game is exactly the kind of relationship I love—allowing players to leave their own mark on this world. This player participation experiment was a trial, but the results were great, so we want to do more in the future. Returning to Tokyo with those Japanese creatures—now living in the released game—felt quite special.
Q: Finally, is there anything you’d like to say to the players??
Jørgen:First, I just want to say: thank you for playing our game.
Life Below has been part of our lives for many years. It’s a quirky, ambitious little game. From the start, we knew that making a city-builder about coral reefs, biodiversity, and ecological balance wasn’t necessarily the safest bet in the world. Beyond the general popularity of city-builders, we had little certainty whether this was a wise move—either financially or in terms of whether we could actually make it fun.
But we believed in it, and still do, enough to spend years and significant resources bringing it to life.
One of the greatest strengths of games is letting us experience something firsthand, rather than just being told about it. You can read in books that coral reefs are under threat, but in the game, you spend hours building a reef yourself, watching life slowly return, developing affection for the creatures living there, and then suddenly caring when it’s threatened. You can “feel” it, and emotion matters in games.
If Life Below can give someone a few beautiful moments underwater, that’s already wonderful.
And if they leave with a slightly better understanding of how remarkable these ecosystems are, that’s even better—not because we forced it on them saying, “Hey, you need to learn this,” but as an inspiration, showing people how wonderful Everythinggj is.
And if, in China, Japan, Norway, or any corner of the world, a player builds a coral reef so vast and vibrant that it defies our imagination... then I think we’ve truly done an excellent job.
Thank you for playing, thank you for your feedback when we made mistakes, and thank you for helping make this game better.
Tusen takk! (Norwegian: A thousand thanks!)