I'm still liking the game Planet Crafter. Every now and then, like most survival crafting games, I hit a plateau and feel like I'm spinning my wheels without making any progress. But if I just give it a bit, I figure out how to bump up to the next terraforming level and things start to move again.

This game is pretty perfect for me - the level of detail is right for me, not too cartoony, but not hyper-realistic (about the same as Raft or 7 Days to Die). The game does lead you through a lot of "here's how you do this" but there are also things I didn't figure out and had to look up. I couldn't figure out how the jetpack worked and the water filter was not intuitively obvious to me. But that could also be because I have not played a wide variety of games - the controls for those things may come more naturally to someone with a different background.

The best part is that I get to help things grow. You can see the landscape changing as you succeed in terraforming the apparently-dead planet - it starts getting warmer, the ice melts into ponds and lakes, the ground starts to green up, and eventually you have plants.

I was so jazzed when I was able to successfully build a beehive.

Oh, and it has a nice soundtrack, which I find I really appreciate in a game. It's by Benjamin Young, and on his site you can listen to this original soundtrack and others he has done (I tried some of his other tunes; I don't know what Savior is, but the music for it sounds really cool).

The music in Planet Crafter is not the music used in the trailer for the game, just FYI.

I'm glad I got this game. Even when I get turned around (repeatedly) on the map, it's satisfying to play. They did a nice job with it.

There is a free-to-play prologue on Steam, if you're curious. The full game supports co-op play, but I think the free version is solo only. https://store.steampowered.com/app/1830840/The_Planet_Crafter_Prologue/

#PlanetCrafter #Gaming

@AngelaPreston Just based on your previous description of the game, I was intrigued 🙂 Of course, at that point I didn't have a good Windows machine to try it on ... We just have this tiny miniPC that we use as a NAS, but that probably won't cut it for playing games.

We just got a cheap Windows tablet to do art on and I'm hoping that it can handle the game since it sounds interesting — sort of like "No Man's Sky" but with a lot more building/crafting than exploring. Though that's not totally fair to "No Man's Sky" since it does have building but I like the idea of bringing a dead planet to life ...

So, hoping to try it out some time soon. Thank you for the recommendation 🙂

@f I haven't tried No Man's Sky but maybe? This one does have some exploring. You have to harvest things you need for the "recipes" and some of those things are easier to find than others. And there are wrecks of other ships where you can find messages and helpful supplies.

Sometimes it drags a little for me when I have to "take a trip" to go find a rare ingredient and haul it back so I can craft with it. Going far from my base and then bringing things back (when carrying space never feels quite large enough and I'm also carrying water/ food/ oxygen) can feel a little tedious if I have to do it a lot.

@AngelaPreston Sorry about the tangent on "No Man's Sky" ... just thinking out loud 🙂I like exploration games but "No Man's Sky" is huge and all you do is explore. It just gets a little unfulfilling after a while.

But I'm hoping that "Planet Crafer" will prove more satisfying with the terraforming aspect. I just need to find the time to play now 😛

@f I will be interested to know how you find it! I like that there is (at least, so far) no combat. You can expire due to thirst, hunger, or lack of air. There are meteor storms that can mess up your day. You can take fall damage. But I haven't experienced any jump scares, fighting, or conflicts.

@AngelaPreston I don't like games where I have to fight either 🙂In fact, I specifically avoid games which involve fighting except probably for "Diablo" but that's probably a hang-over from younger days .. Plus the fact that I can play it with my wife 😛

Will let you know if I actually get some time to play "Planet Crafter" beyond the initial gameplay 🙂