By Adam Smith on July 5th, 2012 at 1:00 pm.
Where are all the blocks? Planet Explorers, available in alpha right now, is a terraforming, building, crafting sort of a thing, but when the player starts digging the earth isn’t shifted in discrete cubes. Unnatural and off-putting as that is, it does at least give the game a distinctive appearance, as do the giant creatures trundling about. Construction is of the fort and tower variety, given that the planet is hostile in the extreme, and it could turn out to be quite the thing, as demonstrated by the trailer below.
The planet in Planet Explorers is designed rather than generated, so there will be constructed landmarks and even a story to follow, although doing so will be optional.
I thought it was all procedural at first though and seeing those creatures set a train of thought clattering slowly out of my brainstation. What if a game offered a procedurally generated world to craft and explore, as is all the rage these days, but with Spore’s creatures wandering around in it, collected randomly from the creations of other players.
That would be good, right?
As for Planet Explorers, I haven’t had chance to look at it yet but perhaps one day I will.