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Post news Report RSS Planet Explorers Alpha v0.1 Released!

We're proud to release Planet Explorers Alpha v0.1 to the public. It's free and available to download in the downloads section (whenever it's authorized by indiedb).

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After so much hard work (we started on this last July, we're a small team, so we don't do things very fast, hehe), we've finally got something to show for (it should be in the download section once it's approved by indiedb). Planet Explorers Alpha v0.1 will allow you to somewhat see what we're aiming for, I say "somewhat" because a bunch of the things we want to implement aren't in yet. We'll be updating the alpha throughout the summer until Beta in late fall.


Download the Alpha here: Indiedb.com

Here are the requirements for the alpha (it's for PC only, don't ask us for any other versions since we don't have the resources or manpower to do them anyway):

Required:
Dual 2.0Ghz or above CPU
DX10.1+ compatible GPU
3GB RAM
2GB HD Space

Recommended
Dual 3.0Ghz or above CPU
DX 11 compatible GPU
8GB RAM
4GB HD Space

In Planet Explorers, you will be able to get things called scripts, that tells you the required materials needed to craft something. So far in alpha v0.1, there are about ~35 scripts. There are 10 types of material, including wood, dirt, sand, stone, limestone, marble, bronze, iron, steel, and gold. A useful script would be the monster beacon, you can get it from the NPC character Chen. The monster beacon allows you to start a tower defense game at any time, anywhere. There is an end of the world for the alpha, since we only uploaded the voxel data for 1 section of the map. And do be careful, right now the punishment for death is -20% of your building materials.

Please visit our boards at Pathea.net to tell us what you think, good or bad. Or on the boards here. And please, please, please, report any bugs that you may find on the boards! That's what public play testing is all about!

Alpha v0.2 should come in about 2 weeks.

Have fun!

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doppl3r
doppl3r

That's strange, I can't seem to find the place where I put my money to purchase this game. Haha, looks fantastic! Keep up good work.

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mik3k
mik3k

Three thumbs up!! (don't ask)

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Insolent.
Insolent.

Gah, if only I didn't have to work! Will be downloading this as soon as I get home.

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DF_Acid
DF_Acid

I was just about to go into my account when this caught my eye. I really have to say this is amazing. The video does not do this game justice. Planet explorer has so much potential its almost not funny.

The only thing I have to say is the specifications are way to high for a normal computer. Not to many people have a DX 11 GPU let alone 8.00GB of ram. Although I can run it without a single problem you will weaken your user base if you keep the specs so high.

Great game none the less. Keep it up!

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zede05 Author
zede05

Thanks! I should have said the "recommended" is for getting super high frame rates with little slowdown. With an i5 3.0Ghz and a GTX 560, we can get 50-60fps no problem, which is more than enough for most people. Once we have LOD in by alpha v0.5, that'll probably speed up a lot of things. Unfortunately, unlike games like Minecraft, people with onboard gpus will not be able to play this game for sure, so yes, we will lose some user base to that.

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Threeli
Threeli

I find that every time I start the game, I am floating some 30 meters in the sky. I can find no way to reset myself to earth - and this seems to happen no matter the graphical setting I choose (if that is even relevant).

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zede05 Author
zede05

That's due to your graphics card not supporting opencl, check and see if it's got an updated driver with opencl support. If not, you're out of luck. All DX10.1+ cards should support opencl.

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Threeli
Threeli

Strange; I'm using an Radeon HD 6700, DX 11, and it claims to support opencl. Additionally I meet the recommended specs so I've really got no idea why it's not functioning.

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zede05 Author
zede05

Try updating the driver and see.

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Threeli
Threeli

I have no updates available, just doesn't work for me. Anyway, the game looks good - hope you do well.

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Crystan
Crystan

This looks promising, tracked!

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Grefuntor
Grefuntor

Looking cool!
I know you said you don't have the manpower and resources to port the game to other platforms, but
because your using unity can't you just publish it to Mac/Web via the menu? It shouldn't really require any extra work (as far as i know).

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zede05 Author
zede05

The voxel system we're using is actually outside of Unity, it might work, it might not, we haven't had time to test it on a Mac yet. We'll do that before beta though.

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Komposten
Komposten

I wonder how much money you would get to put into development with Alpha Funding?

Hmm... With such a amazingly looking (have only watched the trailer so far) game, the potential of this game is above the ceiling...

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zede05 Author
zede05

We do keep that in mind, but I think we want to make the game better first before we ask for crowd funding.

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BigD145
BigD145

Aw. I was hoping for Planets Explorers.

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zede05 Author
zede05

Hey hey, one step at a time! :)

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onionman
onionman

Ah bummer :/ Crashes for me on startup.

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zede05 Author
zede05

What are you specs? And where does it crash? The Pathea logo? Main screen? What OS do you run?

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onionman
onionman

Vista 64. GTX 260, i5.

It crashes at about 26% after pressing "ok" at the character setup.

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zede05 Author
zede05

How much ram?

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onionman
onionman

4gb, just looked at the req. and oh my gosh you guys are asking for a lot of ram. That's a bit ridiculous, though I hope this project does well. It's looking really good!

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onionman
onionman

Just checked, it's crashing long before getting near running out of RAM.

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zede05 Author
zede05

No, 4gb is more than enough. Our recommendation specs are for people who wants 100fps. In fact, I'm not sure why it's crashing for you at all, since all your specs are fine, should be getting solid 30fps with that setup. Could it be the OS? We don't have a Vista system to test on.

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onionman
onionman

If I run it with administrator privileges it gets to 94% before crashing, if that helps at all.

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zede05 Author
zede05

Hi onionman, sorry for the late reply, but can you pm me the game log of your crash (its in the game's folder)? We're not able to replicate this bug on our setups.

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Tajin
Tajin

I don't really like the idea of having to login when playing singleplayer.

Couldn't test yet.

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zede05 Author
zede05

It's for us to know how many people are playing and what we need to do to prepare for multiplayer servers.

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Expack
Expack

Game looks very nice so far, but I've got a few critiques/bugs:

-Body type options not implemented (i.e. can change height, foot size, or waist size options without any effect).

-When you die, if you have nothing equipped, you can no longer attack using your fists.

-Game is saved automatically upon exit. This normally wouldn't be a problem, but there is no way to manually save or load games (at least, they don't appear to have been fully implemented yet), and there is no indication that the game saves automatically. As such, people might think the game is storing the game state when they quit the game, resulting in the player resuming their last 'save' when they start a new game.

-There is no way to bring up the help screen which the initial NPC shows you.

-There is no way to load the auto-saved game, so the player effectively has to 'start' a new game in order to continue.

Also, this is less of a critique and more of a question: why does the game require a GPU which can run OpenCL? What is so vital to the game that it cannot be calculated on a multithreaded CPU? I understand there's a difference between how a GPU and a CPU handle calculations, but I'm interested in hearing why you chose to use OpenCL.

Otherwise, definitely an excellent concept you've got here! (Oh, and for those of us with more powerful DX11 GPUs, perhaps you could add the option to increase the voxel detail? ;) )

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Stankor
Stankor

I see a lot of potential in this game. :)

Feedback

- Movement is clunky. I press the W button and I go forward a whole meter.

- 3rd person view is especially clunky, I suggest you lock the camera to where I am looking, and use another button to unlock the mouse cursor so I can click on things

- Jumping is weird. You lose almost all horizontal momentum. Make it so we can jump longer.

- I told the doctor I don't want to go back to the wounded girl (i wanted to see the quests), he told me "shut up and move", but now he won't follow me :(

- I went back to the wounded girl, but she wasn't there anymore.
The tower I had built was also gone. I had to quit and load again and she appeared. The tower was still gone though.

- There is a bug where left clicking will stop working. it won't work for any action at all, including digging, chopping, fighting. It is only fixed if I restart the game.

- I have no idea how to kill a warbird, I don't have a bow, and it just pushes me back when it comes down.
- 500 wood is a bit too much grinding.
- killing animals won't give me meat, just hides. I also suggest a better way of looting the corpse, either WoW or Minecraft style. I don't like that loot just appears in my inventory.

Thanks for reading, keep up the good work!

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taintedpyro813
taintedpyro813

looks amazing :D i'm tracking and i plan to upload footage onto my youtube channel when y'all upload a better version (to make y'alls game look better, when a lot of major bugs are gone and more content is implemented) :D

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