For those of you that enjoy the minecrafty, starboundy type game with building and sci-fi stuff, you might want to look at this. I haven't bought it yet cause money, but it looks pretty interesting. 50X50km generated maps with base and vehicle building, item-crafting and survival stuff. Looks like a cross between Starbound and Monster Hunter. http://planetexplorers.pathea.net/ AND HOLY SHIT, THAT VECHILE EDITOR!
I would not be surprised. I'm picking this up at some point in the indeterminate future, so I'll post if we can.
Thinking of getting this with my tax return, would like to hear from someone who owns it first though.
how does it stand compared to starbound, though? it still looks a bit glitchy. what happened to starforge?
Had it for about a week now, and so far the impression is good! First off, the creation system is amazing and to be commended. Honestly it allows for nearly unparalleled design freedom, limited only by the resources available to your character, which to be honest aren't too difficult to obtain. Making vehicles and weapons that you can use in-game without having to mod them in is spectacular, and overall the system is fairly easy to use and understand. The mining is effective, if a bit on the clunky side, as the camera often jumps around or makes it hard to see what you're doing, but it ends up being more a minor annoyance than anything game breaking. If you find it unenjoyable enough you can always skip it by hunting and buying all the resources you need from NPC's with meat. Combat is fun but unfinished, the animations and hit detection aren't the best, especially with melee weapons. It can be hard to tell when you've landed a hit, as the sound effects are placeholder and creatures don't really react much to it. Guns I feel are a lot more effective and fun to use, and hunting is overall a fun part of the game. It just needs work, which apparently it will get in the alpha .8 versions. The controls for the game are all-in-all pretty good. They get the job done, they don't feel too counter-intuitive, and they aren't a big hindrance in most aspects of gameplay. The only negative for me personally when playing was I found it annoying to switch weapons, particularly if you're switching to a sword and shield, because there is no way to scroll through weapons currently you have to assign both to number keys, which means you have to equip both the sword AND shield. With guns it's less of an issue, but it would be nice to be able to scroll through weapons easier, and to be honest if you have a shield it should auto-equip the best one with a sword. The world is definitely one of the best parts of the game, with a HUGE variety in both the flora and fauna, in different parts of each biome, and different biomes. Creatures have basic behaviours, for instance herbivores will form a herd and fend off predators as a group, whereas some predators may hunt in packs. When a creature is wounded it may attempt to run away, and predators will actively hunt prey. They do not eat prey yet, which means you can get free resources if you chase a predator off a carcass, but that may be added in later as well. Each biome also offers different herbs you can collect which have different uses, adding extra incentive to explore (as if the beautiful world with interesting creatures isn't incentive enough), and the various NPC survivors you meet will fill you in on the backstory of the game, including events that happened on earth/mars, and what causes the divide between earthlings and martian settlers. The Quest system is pretty basic; go here, do this, do that, save this person, escort them, collect these resources, etc. Nothing revolutionary, but the rewards make them worth doing I guess, and the backstory is interesting. Build mode (what you use to construct buildings) is overall pretty intuitive and fun, with many different shapes to choose from and ways to place them, you are pretty much limited by your imagination. Want a Dark Tower of Doom? Build it. Want an underwater castle? Build it. Want to live on a mountain, or IN a mountain? Go ahead. The free build mode allows you to place things anywhere you want around your character, which is waaaaay better than the minecraft way of doing things, where you have to move your character everywhere to build things. Crafting is very, very complex and deep, with each component being craftable, and in turn being used to make something even bigger and more complex. You will need to craft the components and have all the resources on you if you are to import a vehicle/weapon from the creation system, which makes perfect sense to me. For an early access game, and especially an alpha, I think it's one of the most polished ones I've played. It's fun, and it has so much potential, I honestly would recommend it if you can see past the few small issues there are and you enjoy exploration, building, hunting, and driving things you design.
