Sandbox RPG dev spends 5 years combining No Man's Sky with Minecraft in "voxel survival game where the world is a planet" in a solar system with "seamless" space travel, smashes Kickstarter goal in 3 hours
PlanetSmith will head into alpha very soon
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On paper, merging No Man's Sky and Minecraft is an easy pitch. It's no surprise, then, that a Kickstarter for a game doing just that has completely smashed its goals, earning over six times the original target.
The game is PlanetSmith, a sandbox RPG set on spherical planets that are procedurally generated. "Explore alien planets, build anything you can imagine, fight dangerous creatures, and seamlessly launch into space to continue your adventure across a living solar system," reads the blurb.
The description goes on to point out that your excavating and exploration can "reshape entire landscapes." The worlds are malleable to your desires, and they'll change as you impact their makeup. Once you're finished on one, you can hop back into your rocket to find another, with spacefaring similar to No Man's Sky's where you roam around until you find another ball of life that looks appealing.
Article continues belowKenneth Ward is the main dev behind the game, operating under the pseudonym Incandescent Games having spent five years putting the project together so far. "The idea for PlanetSmith didn't start with space," he explains in a YouTube video.
"It actually started with something I found unsatisfying with Minecraft. I've always loved the feeling of exploring a new Minecraft world," he continues. "Minecraft worlds are effectively infinite, which sounds great until you realize that exploring in one direction is basically no different than starting a brand new world."
This led to the question: "What if a sandbox survival game took place on a real planet?" PlanetSmith is the result of that hypothesis, and having earned over £26,700, on a target of just £4,314, plenty are curious about the possibilities. The Kickstarter runs for 23 more days, and alpha access is due to begin this April. Keep an eye on the Steam page, if you're keen.
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Anthony is an Irish entertainment and games journalist, now based in Glasgow. He previously served as Senior Anime Writer at Dexerto and News Editor at The Digital Fix, on top of providing work for Variety, IGN, Den of Geek, PC Gamer, and many more. Besides Studio Ghibli, horror movies, and The Muppets, he enjoys action-RPGs, heavy metal, and pro-wrestling. He interviewed Animal once, not that he won’t stop going on about it or anything.
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