Early Access Packed with Creative and Survival Modes

[Wazbat]

https://www.planet-nomads.com/2017/0...urvival-modes/


With the considerable amount of dev work left and the launch of Mass Effect Andromeda in March, we are more and more looking at April as the launch month for Planet Nomads Early Access. Remember however that Alpha Nomads will have the Early Access build available a month before everyone else – already in March.

Now let's take a look at one part of the considerable amount of work and that's the survival mode, closely followed by creative mode. These are the initial two modes you can expect in Planet Nomads. How's the gameplay different in each one?

Survival Mode

The bread & butter of Planet Nomads. If you read through these features carefully, you'll be better able to visualize the everyday struggles of the nomadic life.

The defining feature of survival gameplay is death. Players can die and if you do, you respawn either at one of your cryo-beds or in the escape module.

To avoid death, you'll want to keep a healthy life-style. Eat good food (veggies!), drink pure water, sleep enough and avoid poisons, injuries and radioactivity. Your body will reward you with more energy throughout your work day, let you endure more, run faster, and so on. Conversely, if you punish your body with cold or heat or radiation, you will suffer movement penalties, vision impairment, deteriorating health and eventually complete shutdown of bodily functions.

You won't be alone on the newly crash-discovered planet. Various creatures will be there to make you company, and while some will be a good source of protein for you, others will want to suck the protein from your marrow-bones. It will be up to you to discover which animals to hunt and which to avoid.

When you decide to build things, you will be placing skeletons and welding them to their final stage. Building in survival mode will require materials that you need to find, mine and refine in 3D printers. Those 3D printers and all other functional blocks like wheels, doors and lights need to be powered by generators, which in turn need fuel to generate electricity.

You will use the newly developed multi-tool to mine, weld and cut things through.

Creative Mode

The main goal of the creative mode is to let you build with ease and try things out. Everything from the game-design perspective is made with this goal in mind.

Your Nomad character will be invincible. You will have unlimited energy for jet-pack and the tool. Building is instantaneous as seen in the alpha version and doesn't require any materials (in fact, player inventory will not be part of the creative mode). Building blocks can be removed by right click. All building blocks are at your disposal, and while functional blocks require electricity from generators, the generators themselves don't need fuel and run 24/7 forever. You may fast-forward the night and enjoy daylight all day long.

Animals will not be part of the creative mode as we want you to discover them in their natural habitat – full of fear and anticipation.

In creative mode you may save and load at will.

Game Development Progress

Some of the above will be taken from the alpha or has already been developed. We're going to rework tool-handling animations as the tool and its handling is new. The player attributes and conditions are coded in. We have been working on animals – their visual evolution, animations and sound effects. Together with the AI that will guide their movement and behavior (nearly finished). We are working on the skeletons for the building blocks (1 stages each). Half of the harvestable and edible fruits and veggies are in. Skipping the night is work in progress at the moment. Inventories of the player, printers, workbenches, generators and containers are in. New, more hi-tech status GUI (or HUD) is in the making! Sound effects are a huge category that's constantly expanding.

The first two biomes - deep forest and jungle - are all done. Both visually and gameplay-wise. The density and dispersal of mineable ores and crystals are set. As well as the spread of edible plants, bushes and trees. Populating the animals coming in shortly.

This is how the new jungle looks today (Early Access version).




The badlands are next for Petr to put in the necessary game-design elements.




More news and biomes coming in the next episode of Nomadic Journals. Bits and pieces leaking on Twitter and added on Trello too.

Thanks for following the development and stay cool, Nomads!

[Benjamin (ShadowFlightBA)]

Man, those screenshots look good. Avoiding Mass Effect Andromeda, while personally I'm not interested in it, I can see this is a good move. No animals in creative mode? Shame, I wouldn't mind hunting them with all the weapons availabe..... while not being in danger myself

[madmonkie44]

Thanks for the updates. Everything is looking very nice. Can't wait to join in.

[Maslostroj (Daniel)]

I wouldn't mind hunting them with all the weapons availabe..... while not being in danger myself

We bet you wouldn't

[solo]

oh man, this looks great, can't wait to see if you guys implement some hidden legendary creatures that insta kill you XD

[Nomad Dave]

Man, those screenshots look good. Avoiding Mass Effect Andromeda, while personally I'm not interested in it, I can see this is a good move. No animals in creative mode? Shame, I wouldn't mind hunting them with all the weapons availabe..... while not being in danger myself

GOD INVENTED TRAINERS FOR THAT (not the kind you put on your feet);)

[Benjamin (ShadowFlightBA)]

We bet you wouldn't

What did you win

The only way I get to hunt these days is on my pc, don't have a license to hunt anymore.... all these regulations drive me nuts. I'm allowed to have a gun/rifle, but can't hunt with it. So, my son and I do a lot of target practice in the garden, preparing for the zombie apocalypse... as if that will ever happen and even if it will, I'm sure my country will have all kinds of regulations for shooting zombies as well.

Anyway, if I can't hunt them in creative mode, then survival it will be as well!

[Miamato]

Guys, are you planning to add some demo version when you come to steam?
Just before paying money it would be nice to try the game for 1-2 hours

[Wojtek]

If you buy through steam you can refund within 2 weeks of purchase or before you clock 2h in game.

[Harrison]

Good news. Also, I guess, all this graphic improvements will request more system resources?

[Azirahael]

Guys, are you planning to add some demo version when you come to steam?
Just before paying money it would be nice to try the game for 1-2 hours

TBH there's not much game at the mo'.

More of a tech demo.
There's a reason it's not even in early access :P

[Frankol23pl]

the game has potential but must have multiplayer pvp!
but that will pvp mode?

[Azirahael]

What weapons are available in this edition?
What weapons are planned?

[Jaycephus]

I've been playing Empyrion a lot, and really like it, though it is also just in early access. I feel like they have a good balance of exploration, dangerous animals, and super-dangerous alien beings, though it is still simplistic in some ways and there is probably ZERO procedural-anything, it feels 3 or 4 times more interesting at this phase than does No Man's Sky, and I got it for about a 4th or less of the cost of NMS. The interesting thing is that alien drones and attack ships will come for you, and there are bases and places filled with alien creatures of different sorts. I haven't even played multiplayer yet, or even gotten off of my first planet, or have access to all the things you can build with, yet. The things you can build are much nicer looking than the outdated marketing images that they still have on their website. They're really hurting themselves with that.

Looking forward to EA PN with more stuff, and I assume more blocks with colors? Can't wait to get my hands on the Early Access a month early.

[GaborB]

I tried Empyrion, but I refunded it on Steam. The planetary graphics was really pretty good, but I found a lot of its mechanics quite odd, e.g. the no-damage zones where you can drive a ship into a mountain, and it doesn't get damaged. I was also quite disappointed by the damage system (no deformation, blocks just disappear). But the moment when I decided to refund it was when I left the planet with the ship, and I saw the huge, ugly pop of switching from the planet scene to the space scene. I really, really hate discontinuities like that, it breaks my immersion a lot. I refunded even Elite: Dangerous largely because of this (the suddenly appearing asteroid fields and stations/ships when you leave supercruise).

BTW, besides the Mass Effect, another title for the devs to look out for is Hellion. It's a space survival that will come out tomorrow in early access, has some advanced features (e.g. orbital mechanics, multiplayer in a persistent universe, relatively complex life support system with air filters that wear down), and it started to pop up in a lot of places... Fortunately it doesn't have a proper building system; from what I gathered you can only find and reuse huge ready-made prefab modules, which arguably puts that game into a different category. Also, I'd think chances are high that the multiplayer/server issues will mess up the game's reception – it's quite a risky move from a small studio to limit the players to multiplayer mode.

[Benjamin (ShadowFlightBA)]

I tried Empyrion, but I refunded it on Steam. The planetary graphics was really pretty good, but I found a lot of its mechanics quite odd, e.g. the no-damage zones where you can drive a ship into a mountain, and it doesn't get damaged. I was also quite disappointed by the damage system (no deformation, blocks just disappear). But the moment when I decided to refund it was when I left the planet with the ship, and I saw the huge, ugly pop of switching from the planet scene to the space scene. I really, really hate discontinuities like that, it breaks my immersion a lot. I refunded even Elite: Dangerous largely because of this (the suddenly appearing asteroid fields and stations/ships when you leave supercruise).

BTW, besides the Mass Effect, another title for the devs to look out for is Hellion. It's a space survival that will come out tomorrow in early access, has some advanced features (e.g. orbital mechanics, multiplayer in a persistent universe, relatively complex life support system with air filters that wear down), and it started to pop up in a lot of places... Fortunately it doesn't have a proper building system; from what I gathered you can only find and reuse huge ready-made prefab modules, which arguably puts that game into a different category. Also, I'd think chances are high that the multiplayer/server issues will mess up the game's reception – it's quite a risky move from a small studio to limit the players to multiplayer mode.

Same here, I thought Empyrion was really odd and after they had a free weekend, I removed it from my wish list, couldn't get used to the game. Lot's of potential, wasted by oddities.

Mass Effect, I'm keeping my eye on it, but doubt I'll be buying it. Most AAA games these days are so disappointing and not worth my time and money at all. I wait until they drop in price, don't wish to spent over €60 on games that aren't worth more then half that price at all. I own quite some indie game for which I paid €20 or less and any single one of them is way better then any of the AAA games I bought these last few years.

[Wojtek]

BTW, besides the Mass Effect, another title for the devs to look out for is Hellion. It's a space survival that will come out tomorrow in early access, has some advanced features (e.g. orbital mechanics, multiplayer in a persistent universe, relatively complex life support system with air filters that wear down), and it started to pop up in a lot of places... Fortunately it doesn't have a proper building system; from what I gathered you can only find and reuse huge ready-made prefab modules, which arguably puts that game into a different category. Also, I'd think chances are high that the multiplayer/server issues will mess up the game's reception – it's quite a risky move from a small studio to limit the players to multiplayer mode.

Have you seen Osiris: New Dawn? No procedural anything, no voxels, but the planet survival is amazing with really dangerous fauna. Effects in the suit are also awesome. Still needs some development when it comes to interplanetary travel, but their progress is good. Building system is like Subnautica rather than SE.

[GaborB]

Have you seen Osiris: New Dawn? No procedural anything, no voxels, but the planet survival is amazing with really dangerous fauna. Effects in the suit are also awesome. Still needs some development when it comes to interplanetary travel, but their progress is good. Building system is like Subnautica rather than SE.

Yes, Osiris is on my wishlist for some time. I think I read some negative reviews about the controls and the enemy spawning, and it kept me from buying it, but I’ll recheck it. Actually I play/played Subnautica, and I liked it a lot. I think they made an excellent job with the beginning of the game; it felt extremely polished. But after some progression the unfinished state became more evident, so I’m waiting for some bigger updates before playing it again.

But I did find the building system of Subnautica too simple; the fact that nothing can be designed from scratch severely limits my creative freedom, so I can’t imagine spending a lot of time in that game (or in Osiris, I guess). What I’m really craving for is a game with a more fine-grained building system (like Space Engineers or Planet Nomads). So I’m really hoping that Planet Nomads won’t rely too heavily on prefabs. :P

[GaborB]

Just an update on my mentioning of Hellion: It came out yesterday, and it seems that it's a complete crapfest; lots of players are saying it's basically not a game, but a very buggy tech demo. They seem to have huge issues with the servers too (as I predicted). Also, it turned out that they are not even planning planetary gameplay (you can't land on planets). It was on the top sellers list right after coming out, but I personally highly doubt it will get back there.

[Wojtek]

Just an update on my mentioning of Hellion: It came out yesterday, and it seems that it's a complete crapfest; lots of players are saying it's basically not a game, but a very buggy tech demo. They seem to have huge issues with the servers too (as I predicted). Also, it turned out that they are not even planning planetary gameplay (you can't land on planets). It was on the top sellers list right after coming out, but I personally highly doubt it will get back there.

I actually got it. It's a bugfest at the moment, but the newtonian physics are fun. I have Planet Nomads and other games for planetary gameplay ;)

[Hrafna]

I remember a time when I used to like having to figure things out, back when it was relatively easy to see whether you could use an item or not, like a button, a crate, or a weapon, but with modern graphics being all hyper-realistic today you can't tell interactive items from regular non-interactive items anymore without something there to guide you, so you're just lost trying to figure out what the hell you can and cannot do in the game. As I was watching w4sted try to figure out how to put on a damned jetpack in Hellion the other day, I thought to myself: "Wow, I hate this game already, and I haven't even given the game more than five minutes of consideration." The same goes for Eden Star, but instead of it being difficult to figure out how to put on a jetpack, they just smash a whole wikia of information in your face from the get-go: "Here, learn everything immediately, otherwise you'll die!" and you go "Aaagh, help, I only have 2 minutes until nightfall and I still haven't figured out how to place an object, gaaah!"

[GaborB]

Hahh, I see others are also interested in Hellion. I hope the devs don't mind that we mention other games. But I admit that maybe it wasn't the best idea from me to start talking about Hellion here.

Honestly, after spending many hours looking for existing and upcoming games, Planet Nomads is the only one I'm genuinely excited about. I didn't find any other games that would have similar building/resource system in a proper gameplay context (e.g. not in a simple sandbox like Scrap Mechanic).

[Harrison]

(e.g. not in a simple sandbox like Scrap Mechanic).

Devs very busy to make a survival mode in the SM. They already working on for it 6 month, maybe more..

[Jaycephus]

I tried Empyrion, but I refunded it on Steam. The planetary graphics was really pretty good, but I found a lot of its mechanics quite odd, e.g. the no-damage zones where you can drive a ship into a mountain, and it doesn't get damaged. I was also quite disappointed by the damage system (no deformation, blocks just disappear). But the moment when I decided to refund it was when I left the planet with the ship, and I saw the huge, ugly pop of switching from the planet scene to the space scene. I really, really hate discontinuities like that, it breaks my immersion a lot. I refunded even Elite: Dangerous largely because of this (the suddenly appearing asteroid fields and stations/ships when you leave supercruise).

Empyrion has deformation/damage indication on blocks now, assuming it has enough health to take much damage. It's still an 'alpha', and Steam Early Access, but is fairly advanced now, and since they are taking money for it, they've put a lot of work in beautification, details, music, sound, and so on that you would hold off on if you were getting it to at least Beta before a release. That's just a practical necessity. I haven't gotten to many other places in it's universe yet, and it does still need a lot of refinement with AI and stuff.

[Frankol23pl]

I've been playing Empyrion and I saw Hellion becouse relise a few day ago...I hope that it will soon come out Planets Nomads and it quickly... otherwise no one will be interested in this game ! ...