The Planet Crafter Review — An Immersive And Interactive Sandbox Survival

Ever wanted to set foot on a completely lifeless planet, drenched to its core, wrapped in scorching heat, and then work your way through to make it habitable? Well, whether you asked it or not, The Planet Crafter is here to deliver that stimulating experience to you anyway.

I believe The Planet Crafter has thoroughly and flawlessly delivered a space expedition and planet exploration platform that Starfield has, unfortunately, failed to hand over. Yes, I used to have some expectations from Starfield.

Gameplay

A short introduction to The Planet Crafter will present a spacecraft about to land on an unknown planet. After that short prologue, you will enter the gameplay and continue exploring your surroundings. 

The controls and dynamics are kept at a basic level that you will quickly acquaint yourself with by playing the game. However, a brief tutorial will still assist you in making the necessary progress so you can begin exploring the vast, unnatural surroundings of an uninhabited planet.

The controls and dynamics are kept at a very basic level that you will easily acquaint yourself with by simply playing the game.

The most enjoyable aspect of the game I like the most is choosing the world type. Like Minecraft, you can set the world to be creative, where you can roam endlessly without caring about keeping your health bar replenished. Also, you can create structures without gathering their resource requirements.

On the other hand, you can play the standard (survival mode), which I mainly prefer, and admire the challenges that the game puts you on.

To summarize, The Planet Crafter puts you on a task to terraform a whole planet. The task is manageable as it breaks down into minor tasks that appear quite basic to accomplish.

Journey That Compliments Your Exploration

The game does not put you on any questline to follow or divert you into any storyline. Instead, the game only encourages the player to explore every corner of the map.

The colossal structures, dreamy-looking sites, and shifting dunes that correspond with its responsive weather dynamics are well-complementary and make the expedition ever more thrilling.

Exploration is the core theme of the gameplay. The survival factor and rewarding mechanics are proportionally linked with the exploration feature. Sustaining hunger and oxygen levels makes it challenging to explore the planet on a far-reaching scale.

The colossal structures, dreamy-looking sites, and shifting dunes that correspond with its responsive weather dynamics are well-complementary and make the expedition ever more thrilling.

The Planet Crafter holds surprise elements in every corner of the map. You can find various shipwrecks, intimidating landscapes, canny cave structures, and even the Mushroom River to explore.

The fact I admire most is that reaching any unique and new area rewards you with a rare resource that paves opportunities to further carry on with your progress. 

Immersive And Interactive Base-Building

In my perspective, the most appealing feature of the gameplay is the building mechanic. If you are playing The Planet Crafter in Standard mode, unlocking new buildings relates to your progress and makes every effort worthwhile. 

Constructing structures that connect block after block and create imposing architectures is well-stimulating. Gathering resources to fulfill building requirements is much more fun as it is basic and challenging. 

Some of the buildings interact with the environment. For example, growing food inside a Food Grower, collecting water out of humid air, or even passively collecting resources from an extractor, depending on where you have placed it.

Constructing structures that connect block after block and create imposing architectures is well-stimulating.

Building unique structures and machines ultimately affects the planet you are stranded on. This means the planet can become an inhabitant of the plants you grow. It can also face climate change from the Heat you provide from specific structures.

Overall, I believe the gameplay captivates the player to focus on exploring and expanding the base throughout the entire planet. The Planet Crafter’s immersive and rewarding progress mechanics are engaging and complement a player’s efforts in every way possible.

Visuals And Performance

The Planet Crafter features comic art graphics that blend well with the 3D and realistic environment. The bright-colored field under glistening sun rays and stones that sparkle in the dark are engrossing. If you’re someone who’s looking for that artistic vibe, this game should be your cup of tea because the backdrops are often mesmerizing.

Unfortunately, the visuals can sometimes be quite tedious as the world lighting tends to change all of a sudden when reaching a particular area. Venturing through the deserted land under the gaze of the blazing sun can immediately shift to a placid night with a sky filled with stars. I do not consider it a bad visual implementation, but it looks illogical that the stars appear stationary.

Regarding the game’s performance, everything appears to execute smoothly. However, there are bugs in certain areas of the map that interfered severely with my exploration experience.

The Planet Crafter features comic art graphics that blend well with the 3D and realistic environment.

Some mountain areas of the planet are glitched out so that there appears to be no collision with the ground. The rocky landscape is present, but walking over it will pull you to the underground level. Occassionally, the collision with the surrounding surface appears so strong that it pushes the player away before even reaching near them. This tedious encounter stops the player from interacting with resources around that area.

In brief, I found the game’s visuals astounding and its performance stable. But some inevitable bug occurrence creates a rough experience that we can only hope to get fixed in later game patches.

Verdict

The game presents a stimulating experience of terraforming a wholly isolated planet. Watching your efforts bear fruitful outcomes with each progressive step is immensely satisfying and encourages you to move further without hesitation.

The Planet Crafter is an exceptional exploring simulator that portrays a deserted planet. A planet which you mend into an inhabited place. I found every gameplay feature gratifying and worth looking into without being tangled by the complexity of mechanics. The Developers have done a good job of keeping an elemental yet diverse gameplay design.

These are all the factors I consider worth mentioning in my review of The Planet Crafter. Do check out more of our reviews while you’re here:

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