After years of using our own engine and tools to build actual playable game content, we are SUPER proud and happy to present the Game-Only Edition of Planetoid Pioneers for only TWO FIVE DOLLAR BILLS! Here’s the launch trailer:
So if you or anyone you know hesitated to dive into the more expensive Contributor Edition, you can now just enjoy the pure gameplay HERE: http://PlanetoidPioneers.com
The team has really pulled together quite the game experience for our Game-Only Edition that is coming out… well, just stay tuned this week 🙂 Please help us by playing the Primoid and let us know your thoughts and issues you run into in the Contributor Community Discord server (find access to it on the Steam Forums here once you log in!). Better yet, build or improve existing areas with the Crush2D tools and show us your ideas! If we like them enough, we’ll see about integrating them and giving you official credit in the game.
Changelog highlights:
Massively improved all existing areas of the Primoid
Added new very WIP South Hub and Mountain areas
New Wrangleoid minigame Planetoids
Automatic save game system
Improved Pioneer locomotion: proper jump, slide, uphill walk etc
Completely overhauled and much nicer sounds for material impacts, etc
Reverb system with echo depending on distance to walls
New much more robust physics solver and other performance improvements
Activity editor target system and IO system to easily make everything trigger anything without code
Redesigned background art in lots of the old Planetoids
New loot system with tiered weapons and different new loot items
Lots of new and improved Blueprints (including new enemies like zombies!)
As always, more bug and crash fixes than we can list. See the repo echo bot for details
If you have been tempted to take the plunge with the one of the world’s most powerful 2D physics engine and tools, right now is a good time to jump since the Planetoid Pioneers Contributor Edition is a solid 20% off this weekend!
With it, you get a killer game development environment seven years in the making, and now also a real juicy preview of what the game we are building with it will play like. As a Contributor, you have a real chance to take an active part in the development of this unique action adventure!
The newest version with much of the content and features we put together during our team’s summer sprint called “Project Slovakia” is in this Contributor Build 3 (already available to our Contributor Community for a few weeks now).
Some of the highlights:
New local PvP game mode/Planetoid (“Carnageoid”) with three arenas
New tutorial segment on the “Primoid” Planetoid
Visual overhaul of many Planetoids
Smooth zoom out on large Planetoids, minimap overview system
Blueprint mass scanning unlock sytem
Refined pioneer controls and behaviours
Massive optimizations everywhere, and more to come
Pio can pickup any assembly up to 150kg
Pio and creatures can get knocked out by hard hits, especially to head
Pio can carry 200kg lumps of resources and throw them
Pio automaticaly prints lumps when he cant carry more resources
Pio can stow things on back, swap them with what is held in hands
Pio can use one-handed tools
Improved AI systems with behavior Zones in scene for simple setup
AI and Pioneer team tag system – build pets and helpers!
Improved player feedback via HUD
Tons of new and improved blueprints like tools, weapons, and structures
Fancy new particle systems, terrain assets, sounds
So we’re a bit late with this one – it was supposed to be out a month ago, but we had several (good!) things distract us, like preparing for our two-month sprint with the core team together in a cabin in Slovakia, which is now ongoing: ProjectSlovakia images on Twitter
Anyway, we did have some great feature news to share even back then, like:
New Labroid Planetoid Scene and Activity, with a monster boss battle in the core
Several new Blueprints like teleporter, flamethrower trap, new chests, etc.
Pioneers can now pick up and throw smaller, circular resource chunks (200kg) vs the huge and frankly unrealistic 1000kg ingots before (which required physics cheats to be lifted). The large ingots are still useful for storage and maybe for towing in a mining cart that is pushed or pulled by a robust Rover.
Entire Asteroid Belt maps can (theoretically) be completed now and are shown as such on the metamap. They are completed by successfully finishing all the Planetoids in them.
BP Fauna Knuckles: The first AI that is mountable, rideable, and controllable after having been printed (so it is friendly toward its creator). KNUCKLES SMASH!
Most printed AIs now ignore the Pioneer that printed it.
Abstracted out and added a generic biped move-behavior to the lua folder. Used both by Bot Flip and the new blueprint, Bot Sentry.
So go forth and enjoy the above in the latest build in the main (non-beta) branch on Steam!
The first major build of Planetoid Pioneers Contributor Edition has been released, and it’s a juicy one! Major improvements include:
Primoid gameplay runs much faster
All Editor modes run the simulation MUCH faster
Carnageoid with last-man-standing gameplay
Lots of Scene Editor improvements and added layer control features
Steam controller support now works again
Better full-screen handling; two alternatives with Alt+Enter and Ctrl+Enter
Screen shake!
There’s plenty of other changes based on Contributor feedback, so head over to our repository twitter stream for the nitty-gritty details.
ALSO, we have opened up our beta branch for those of you who want the very latest features straight out of the oven! Just right click the Planetoid Pioneers entry in your library list and go Properties in the drop-down, and then opt-in to the beta under the Betas tab. (leave pw blank)
That’s all for now! Next major update will be gameplay and content-focused, so stay tuned ~
The core team at Data Realms just spent the last three months working together at Stugan, showcasing during Gamescom, PAX Prime, and also having a series of meetings with platform holders including Nintendo, Microsoft, Sony, Valve, and several others. The responses were very positive, telling us that we have achieved a great foundation and direction for the project. However, it was also made clear that expectations have escalated for Steam Early Access, and we received wise recommendations to build more game content and polish before pulling the trigger. So, we have come to the conclusion that we should postpone the Early Access release of Planetoid Pioneers to early next year, instead of rushing it out the door this fall.
In the mean time, we will be updating the Pioneer Program test builds – if you are interested in participating, sign up at http://signup.planetoidpioneers.com