Planet Explorers | Pathea Games
At first glace, you might think this game is a Minecraft wanna-be, and you’d be right. …At least on the surface.
Put simply, this is a game about collecting resources and making things to kill other things and looking cool while doing it. The major difference that this game has with Minecraft is that most of your creations will come from preset ‘recipes’ that you gather through the game. Each creation takes a different number of different resources. This removes the creative side from creating everyday objects like doors, arrows, catapults, ya know, the common things. It isn’t about experimenting with a 3x3 box, just about putting out the right turret at the right time. This does allow for more of the creative focus to be put on the things that you DO have complete control over: your castle, your weapons, and your ride.
You can build your base of operations in whatever manner you like. 300 foot tower with canons on every floor? Sure! …with a moat lined in laser turrets? Eventually, yes. The nice thing about PE is that you don’t have to painstakingly place every block one at a time. Hit ‘F’ and your camera detaches, allowing you to create entire sections in a few mouse clicks. Messed up? No worries, there is an ‘Undo’ button. This is definitely an alien world.
Now, the absolute best part about this game is the completely customizable weapons and vehicles. If you want to have a triple helical sword made of gold, iron and diamond (and you want to spend the time making it), then you can. You can even plan ahead and model the weapons you want to make later when you find those precious resources. You can also make guns and cars to be all gangster up in those alien grillz (Note the zed).
And although I didn’t make it far enough in the story to unlock vehicle use, it is super satisfying to beat some alien creature to a pulp with your newly created melee implement that resembles the largest flow chart ever, like some kind of JRPG.
Planet Explorers is far from perfect. The story is slow, buggy and not always the best explained. It periodically crashes (or just doesn’t load) and the graphics aren’t far from it’s one meter cubed predecessor. Now, it is still in production and as a free download it could be a lot worse. I could see some serious potential if a Forge-like Tower defense scenario was established, where you and your buddies fought off increasingly difficult alien monsters while having to build your base from materials the dead left for you.
TL;DR: build mode is at least worth a look if you like making thing and seeing them help you kill things.
