Planets³ (actually pronounced Planets-cubed) is the Minecraft killer we've all been waiting for. Some of you might question “How?” and “In what way?” and I will readily say “Watch the video and see.”
The whole thing first comes off as yet another pretentious attempt at climbing into the bed of popularity made famous by Minecraft and then trying to usurp the bed sheets and take over the bed all to itself. However, after watching the short and sweet two and a half minute trailer, it becomes quite clear that this groovy intergalactic tale of creation and customization is exactly what we need to further along the voxel-based emergent genre.
Previously, games like Starmade and Starbound and Cube World brought similar means of advancing the voxel or emergent survival genre to new heights, but they all lacked anything that definitively separated them from the very entities they were trying to emulate. I love Starbound but it's not quite revolutionary, only evolutionary. And I love Starmade, but it's more like a modded version of Minecraft more than its own thing (for now).
I do like that Planets³ offers gamers the same level of mining as Minecraft and its now countless clones that rummage the software hillsides, but what really separates it from the rest is the inclusion of both vehicles and per-voxel item customization. The ability to breakdown and modify weapons, material and items is a huge step forward in the advancement of the emergent survival genre, and it could open a huge gateway to the possibilities of how the game unfolds.
In addition to this, there are countless planets to explore, terraform and manipulate to your liking, as mentioned on the Kickstarter page...
“Planets³ adventures take place in a universe entirely made of 25cm³ blocks (voxels). Each planet represents thousands of billions of blocks. The blocks can be combined in a variety of ways to build beautiful objects and landscape elements of all shapes and size. “
What's more is that gamers are encouraged to modify and edit the game, putting in more of everything and sharing it with friends, family members and rivals alike.
Once the data is stored on the host server, all the clients will be updated with the new configurations and mods, making it easy to play and share new content, almost like LittleBigPlanet or Garry's Mod.
I like what the game has to offer and how it's going about trying to accomplish it. It's a mix of a lot of other Minecraft clones out there, but it doesn't deviate too far away from the core formula that made the original so popular. I love the inclusion of the vehicles, the Starbound-style universe generator and the ability to modify and customize weapons like Starforge and Edge of Space.
If you really like what this game has to offer, you can pledge your money to French studio Cubical Drift over on the official Kickstarter page. You can also upvote and favorite this game to help it get greenlit for Steam by visiting the official Greenlight page.
