*Please note: I only played single-player, and did not explore the co-op aspect of the game.
The Planet Crafter, developed and published by Miju Games, has a pretty straightforward premise: terraform a planet. By yourself. With no tutorial. With no food. And a suspicious number of crashed spaceships dotting the land.
Good luck!
The Planet Crafter Story
I don’t know if I haven’t played deep enough into The Planet Crafter to truly uncover a story, or if there just isn’t one, but I truly have no idea who the character is or why they are on this planet. Normally I put a lot of weight onto a game’s story, and it can make or break the experience for me, but in this instance, the game’s lack of story didn’t bother me at all.
I think it might have actually enhanced the gameplay experience. I really was just a lone survivor on an alien world, and at the end of the day, that’s all that matters.
Gameplay
This game is all about the game mechanics. At its core, The Planet Crafter is a sandbox experience where players will slowly work to transform Arrakis into “The Promised Land”… I mean, red, desert planet to a lush, green paradise.
The gameplay revolves around gathering minerals such as iron, magnesium, and cobalt, and then crafting the equipment necessary to terraform the planet. To start off with, players are given nothing but a two-sentence email telling them to achieve “Blue Sky,” and a checklist of materials to start crafting. There is no official tutorial, but it is not that hard to figure out how to aim your matter disintegrator gun at the blue shiny rock and pull the trigger.
I wasn’t bothered by the lack of tutorials. The game really is straightforward, and while there were times I couldn’t figure out how to do something, like crafting the Progress Screen or finding iridium to make a VegTube, my confusion never stopped me from making progress in the game overall. Every action adds to the terraforming of the planet, so no matter how lost I was, I knew it still counted.
In addition to the crafting experience, exploration is a big part of The Planet Crafter. While devs may have conveniently littered the planet’s surface with as much titanium as my heart desired, I still needed things like fabric, microchips, and food. The only way to secure these items in the early stages of the game is to go exploring. The only way to go exploring is to carefully and strategically plan out the amount of oxygen, food, and water you will need to make it to the crashed vessels littering the planet’s surface, and still get back to your home base before dying. And since your survival supplies take up inventory space, you don’t want to carry more than you will actually need for the journey, otherwise, you won’t have room for all the sweet seed lirmas you’re going to find.
Overall
8/10
Miju Games has crafted something simple, but addictive, celebrating the player by letting them control the experience. The Planet Crafter encourages experimentation and rewards players’ curiosity.
The Planet Crafter is available for PC via Steam. You can also download the demo for free.
Related: Reviews by Michelle Jones
I'm a completionist gamer who just needs to find that one last object and clear that final dungeon. I love all video games, from open world sandboxes on a console to a mindless match three on my phone. In addition to gaming and writing, I am a graduate student working on a thesis about the ancient Icelandic Sagas. Feel free to ask me anything about Vikings.
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Howdy just wanted to give you a quick heads up. The text in your article seem to be running off the screen in Internet explorer. I’m not sure if this is a format issue or something to do with web browser compatibility but I figured I’d post to let you know. The design and style look great though! Hope you get the issue fixed soon. Cheers