The Planet Crafter

If you are looking for a creative game with no enemies to fend off except the environment (although you can play Sandbox mode to eliminate that too) that you cannot go wrong with this game. I downloaded the demo in early access and after a few hours I was hooked and bought it. The basic premise of the game is that you are tasked with terraforming a planet. There are some story elements that go with this, but I won’t spoil that. I will say though that the story is a little light, but I was not bothered by this.

Even though it was early access the game was in a much more playable state than what I was expecting. Sure, the terraformation stages where not finished but most other functions were present.

I played through until the end of what was available multiple times. Starting in different places and using what I had learned from previous play throughs. Then, towards the end of last year (2023) it was announced that the game would receive its 1.0 release in April. I couldn’t wait and although there was a development branch I could try I didn’t want to spoil the first fresh play through of the completed game. At release it was 30% off (of course I already owned it so didn’t have to pay anything for the full version.) I am not sure how long that would last but the game is not expensive. At the time of writing this I have spent just over 130 hours in the game. The cherry on top is at release they added co-op multiplayer and a way to finish the game. Although I haven’t gotten there yet so can’t comment on that (also wouldn’t want to spoil it for others!)

There are, however, a couple of problems even in the 1.0 release. For example:

• There are numerous places around the map where it is possible to clip through the ground, rocks etc.
• Sometimes rocks scattered from meteor storm impacts clip through into your base and block you. They do despawn quickly but still annoying. I will say that nothing you build will ever get damaged by meteors etc.
• Rockets can go off course when launched. This is just a visual glitch (and is quite funny) but all the same a glitch since early access.

The developers of the game are a small team and all through early access until release have been responsive and have communicated throughout.

Overall, I would give this game:

8/10

The game is available on Steam – The Planet Crafter