Planet Crafter by developer and publisher Miju Games—PC (Steam) review written by Valerie with a copy provided by the publisher.
Estimated reading time: 6 minutes.
The game opening music has a light-hearted discovery aspect to it that enticed me into the game and onto the planet. Planet Crafter is an open world, space survival, crafting and terraforming game that has given me tonnes of fun and aggravating situations as you read through this review.
Other than the fact that the name of the game said 'crafter' and 'planet', I was immediately hooked. So much to explore and so much to do! There's so many ways this organized and yet scatterbrained adventurer can gather, access and use in this game that when I hit a snag I find my way around it, or get right into it. The hostile environment is the only enemy I have to deal with.
When you open your eyes into your first view, you are greeted with a Mars type planetscape out the door of your crashed escape pod. You are given supplies in a crate and a tool you have to upgrade to progress through the game. You are a convict who in turn for becoming a 'planet crafter' for Sentinel Corps has her/his sentence commuted. Oh! And there's more to this story in this game as you'll find out once you get a pair of items built! I find that awesome how they implemented the story into this game!
One of the things that bugged me was not having a tool belt on my hud to access my food by hitting a number key. I am so used to that in other games that it frustrated me a bit in my learned process of healing myself quickly. So—ya, my first game I died and started a new one. This time I used the relaxed mode so I could work through the segments of progressing through the tiers of living and exploring.
The main reason I died in my first game was from not hitting certain markers of progression that you can keep track of by logging screens. Imagine yourself as an astronaut in your newly built space station where everything has a purpose and everything is tracked, logged, and accounted for. So, the computer that would be keeping track of your station's systems are screens in this game. They look sleek and spiffy when set up on furniture that you do have access to at the beginning. All you need is to gather the resources needed to build them.
Next we come to the resources. They are scattered all over the place and here's the other part that aggravated my progress. You don't have much inventory space when you start in this game. It was a challenge to gather and use in an expedious way that I longed for even just one item to stack in a batch of 5. I just have to keep in mind that each game is unique and you can't have everything that other games account for. However, as I think further on that thought, maybe they accounted for that later in the progression! One can hope! At least I know that storage isn't a problem, and you can label them!
Power. Everything in my base needs power to run and yes I am a numbers person as well, so I was very thankful for a screen to cover that, but I still use my head to add and subtract as I went along. I am so grateful for solar panels and was very glad to use them in this game. They helped in both balancing my power use and the space I took up laying down my power grid. Of the earlier items you unlock is a beacon. I noticed that as you mark more places with those beacons that you can't turn any of them off leaving just the marker on the map instead for reference.
The graphics in this game are well suited and I'm glad they made the resources like iron and magnesium look like it came from someone chipping away at an ore mine and leaving them lying around for me to pick up. A few times I did wish for a third person view of myself in my space suit, but maybe I'll see that later as I explore further or pop into my friends game. Yes, there is multiplayer now and I am looking forward to that once I get more experience in my own game and learn all the ropes I can.
Ok, another thing that made my teeth grind is damage. I'm used to repairing buildings that get beaten upon by a meteor shower which happens in this game. Not a dent or a scratch appears, but there is some of the rock that actually penetrates your base thereby stopping you from getting to, let's say, your newly made 'garden' room. It does clear away when the shower stops and more resources are left lying on the ground for easy pickup and use. However, adding another layer of stuff to do in this game might put my brain on overload for multi-tasking and getting through content.
Once you find a wreck to search for resources and food you will notice a lot of scattered ship parts and furniture that make navigating through the wreck a little more challenging. Back to those scattered items; I was sad to find out I couldn't salvage or recycle them. Only designated items that your tool interacts with to tell you if you can or can't and how to go about deconstructing it.
When you unlock the map then the world's yours to explore and terraform into a living and breathing planet! One thing a friend of mine found not appealing about the map is the arrows at the bottom for searching around it. Clicking them takes up time where using the mouse to right-click and hold on the map to move it around would be better.
You are also aware from the outset of the game that your oxygen, health and energy gets used up fast at the beginning and then slower as you unlock upgrades to your equipment and suit. There's also fall damage, so make sure you keep your footing and your eyes peeled for cliff edges as you run around.
This game is amazing from a team of six people from France. Miju Games, you are an awesome team to make such an expansive world that is keeping me on my toes to survive as well as my adventurer’s spirit to explore. I love the building aspect which appeals to my organizational habits to hold all my items as I find them. I’m also a bit of a pack rat so having that space to put all my ‘finds’ makes me very happy.
If you’re a fan of open world and survival with base building, you’ll love this game even with it’s little hiccups that had bothered me. Miju Games did a fantastic job captivating base builders and terraformers like me and my friends. I can't wait to see what else is in store from them!
Score: 8.5 / 10
