• Register

A sci-fi sandbox game of creation and survival on procedurally generated planets. You've crash-landed on an unforgiving world with nothing but a few tools and your imagination.

Post news Report RSS 7 Days of Planet Nomads Alpha - Want to Join?

Play Planet Nomads in its alpha stage today. We have released the closed-alpha on Thursday 25th and Alpha Nomads got to do amazing things and experience funny bugs. That's what the alpha testing is all about. We're going to have an update next week.

Posted by on

ALPHA BUILD IMPRESSIONS

Planet Nomads had one shot at making the first impression and going through Youtube Let's Play videos, we will say it hit the mark. And we are incredibly happy to see that. Many thanks to all Youtubers who provided an accurate peak into Planet Nomads Alpha and helped spread the word. We've been chatting on streams and let us assure you it's unbelievably heart-warming to see people recognize Planet Nomads in the chat and even see some familiar names.

There were over 2000 Alpha-Tier backers prior to Alpha release on Thursday and over 300 more have joined since the release. People still considering the alpha access have until Friday to decide. After the timer on Planet Nomads web runs out, the alpha-tier closes for good (Friday afternoon).

OUR GREAT COMMUNITY AT WORK

Not only have we seen people play Planet Nomads, which is tremendously helpful in figuring out what works and what doesn't, but the Bug Reports on the forum are detailed and contain all the information for us to reproduce and fix the bugs. Besides that, people have been helping each other out with hot-fixes, and the Linux players even provided ready-made solutions to our devs, how bloody cool is that?

We've seen detailed creations, faster-than-light travel, we've seen good things and we've seen funny and not so funny glitches... and all that is good. We see people are playing the game, and there's hardly a better view for a game developer (or any creator really) than to see his creation being lived and experienced.

UPCOMING UPDATE & PATCHES

We have collected bugs on the forum, have fixed a few already (beacons switching off on their own, memory leaks, stacking of arced blocks and perma-strafing to name a few) and there are more we are working on right now. You can see the complete list of acknowledged bugs on the forum.

The first update of the Alpha version is coming next week and it will include fixes of the above mentioned bugs. A complete list of bugs will be covered in the changelog next week.

We are incredibly happy to announce that the most pressing issues with physics, like "skidding" vehicles, bouncing and "wobbling", lights screwing up suspensions and the rotor blocks/hinges not always on their best behavior, will be greatly improved. And by greatly we mean nearly entirely. This is a huge win for Planet Nomads, since we have been tinkering with physics in the past several months going from stable, to sometimes wacky, to massively screwed by lights, all the time trying different settings, block weights, wheel power, suspension toughness and banging the table. It seems we have find the perfect combination of them. We'll see next week when you get your hands on it.

Experimental Suspension Design by trekfan42

VERY STABLE ALPHA

To our big surprise, we've seen complaints about how stable the alpha version is. We suppose it was surprising to some people, in today's era of Early Access games. Call us old-fashioned, but this is how we approach game development. Again we wanted Planet Nomads to make a good impression, but that's not the main issue. The thing with hacking together lots of features for the sake of having them and promising yourself to polish them and make them work as intended later down the road is that this approach usually doesn't work. The code gets complex, any retroactive changes affect things you wouldn't expect them to and when the nightmare starts, it never ends. Martin D., the spiritual father of our Sandy engine, has experienced this the most with the Android version of Overkill 2 and I'm sure he never wants to go through that again.

We are in for the long run with Planet Nomads. So when we are working on it six months or a year from now, growing the game, we can still be as effective as we have been so far, and the game will perform as expected. In the long run, it should make us all happy.

Home Sweet Home by JimTheNinja

HOW DOES THE ALPHA PLANET CURRENTLY LOOK LIKE?

This is the planet you will be exploring. 64 kilometers in diameter, procedurally generated with 11 biomes spread evenly from pole to pole and blending between each other with natural transitions.

Planet Generated from BiL

This is how it looks on the surface.

Planet Nomads Alpha Planet Surface

And once you get there, you can start building things right away. Dig underground bases, design vehicles and take them for a spin.

Underground Garage

Is exploring alien planets something you wanna do? Don't miss your chance to get on board the alpha. Afterwards it closes for good, and the next path for Planet Nomads begins - to have the Early Access version, publicly available to all, which will include survival mode with mining, crafting and wildlife fighting. Coming Q1 2017.

Thanks for reading.
Craneballs

#bd081c no-repeat scroll 3px 50% / 14px 14px; position: absolute; opacity: 1; z-index: 8675309; display: none; cursor: pointer; top: 748px; left: 20px;">Save

Post comment Comments
sopa1d
sopa1d

nice game

Reply Good karma Bad karma+1 vote
val1ant
val1ant

cool

Reply Good karma Bad karma+1 vote
T3NSH1R0K
T3NSH1R0K

ill give it a try

Reply Good karma Bad karma+1 vote
skeptik-tik
skeptik-tik

whoa

Reply Good karma Bad karma+1 vote
tevez59
tevez59

good

Reply Good karma Bad karma+1 vote
zhugechongxiao
zhugechongxiao

nice

Reply Good karma Bad karma+1 vote
Quantinus
Quantinus

Nice!

Reply Good karma Bad karma+1 vote
Bogeyman13
Bogeyman13

Zoom

Reply Good karma Bad karma+1 vote
eric_chambi
eric_chambi

nice game

Reply Good karma Bad karma+1 vote
everdinas
everdinas

nice

Reply Good karma Bad karma+1 vote
sagadarzlobaden
sagadarzlobaden

Looks nice

Reply Good karma Bad karma+1 vote
specterum
specterum

nice game i like it :D

Reply Good karma Bad karma+1 vote
peneenormeda
peneenormeda

VAC

Reply Good karma Bad karma+1 vote
cccdark
cccdark

lol

Reply Good karma Bad karma+1 vote
xxxxdarkxxxx
xxxxdarkxxxx

god

Reply Good karma Bad karma+1 vote
BarabasIstvan
BarabasIstvan

very good

Reply Good karma Bad karma+1 vote
Mythox
Mythox

very promising game !!

Reply Good karma Bad karma+1 vote
Lyder
Lyder

Already want =)

Reply Good karma Bad karma+1 vote
craneballs Author
craneballs

Holy guacamoly thank you guys!

Reply Good karma+1 vote
SimpleGhost
SimpleGhost

Looks awesome :) Good luck guys! :)

Reply Good karma Bad karma+1 vote
Guest
Guest

This comment is currently awaiting admin approval, join now to view.

Post a comment

Your comment will be anonymous unless you join the community. Or sign in with your social account: