Planet Explorers has been released on Steam after two years in early access.

Final 1.0 Released
9 November - zede05
And here we are, after two and half years in Early Access, we're finally ready to release the game on Steam. This does not mark the end of development for this title, we will continue to bug fix, tweak, and update this game for at least another half a year, after that it will depend on sales. We plan to continue to add more side stories to both adventure and story mode. We're also looking into putting in features that were left out of the final build, such as animal riding.

In this build, we've opened up the language spreadsheet so that players can do translations into their own languages if they want (and then load that spreadsheet ingame), we'll talk more about this in a couple of days.

We have found that there have been players who change numbers with a third party software in multiplayer games, giving them the ability to one hit kill other players. So, we added an anti-cheating mechanism. When we detect cheaters, he or she will be kicked from the game. If this persists for 3 times, he or she will be banned from multiplayer and reported to Steam. This is a new feature that we hastily put together, so we do need a lot of community input on if this is the right way to go and if it's fair for everyone involved.

We're also in the process of pushing out a demo for new players and the OST for tomorrow (or whenever Steam approves). The OST's a DLC and will cost $3.99 on Steam. The 32 bit version of the game will be later this week or next.

Finally, we want to thank everyone who's been with us throughout Early Access, without you, we wouldn't have been able to be where we are today. There were a lot of rough spots throughout development, but we tried our hardest to make the game as well as we can make it. We hope you'll enjoy it.

P.S. Please help us spread the word about this game, tell you favorite streamer, Youtuber, new media, everyone and anyone!

A new Planet Explorers build is available:

Beta 0.7 Released on Steam

We’ve added the final large new feature to the game in this build, which is the adventure single player mainline story addition. Players of course can ignore it and do what they have been doing in Adventure mode all along. Besides the storyline, we’ve also added new sidequests and enemy states to this mode. Now, this isn’t something complicated like in Civilization, but you will be able to destroy enemy towns or make peace with them. Some features are still missing (such as making peace) and will be in in the next build. All replication scripts have been taken out, so players will need to find them by doing missions or hit the dungeons. Also in this build, we’ve tweaked the strength of some of the boss animals, they’re probably a little too hard now. But please try it out and give us some feedback. We’re done adding in any major new features, so what awaits are tweaks (balance, animation, control, UI, player accessibility), bug fixes, and small additions (like more ambient sounds and npc sounds). We’re going through all the suggestions and feedback from players and will try to polish the game as much as possible before release.

[...]

The Early Access sandbox adventure game Planet Explorers got a beta 0.5/0.51 update:

This build came out a little earlier than expected, because we pushed the adventure mode and balancing changes to the next build, due to several issues in story that just couldn’t wait (namely the Allen Carter getting ported back to the colony issue at the Martian colony). We also did some tweaking to the start of the story mode so that players can get into the groove of the game much faster (by having Gerdy give out the bow and arrow and Allen give out a motorbike). Next build should be out around the 14th.

Changelist Beta 0.5

• Fixed scrambled adventure map
• Fixed “destroy and see” mission not counting correctly in multiplayer
• Fixed Allen Carter teleporting back to the colony during the rescue mission
• Fixed character skin and hair color changing
• Fixed aim issue in 4K
• Fixed world map not showing completely in 4K
• Fixed mouse position being off in 4K
• Fixed colony change armor UI changing the shapes of characters or deleting them
• Fixed some trees not shining when being planted
• Fixed Chen shooting animation sliding
• Fixed some NPC skills icons being wrong
• Fixed after a switch to the Mari currency fast travel still using meat
• Fixed adventure skill tree appearing in story mode
• Fixed birds not being deleted in multiplayer even when the AI turns off
• Fixed NPC ragdoll issue
• Fixed NPC following doing back and forth sometimes
• Fixed adventure difficulty changing to normal upon loading
• Fixed vehicle weapons aim
• Fixed follower robot not attacking ranged foes
• Fixed Creation tooltips
• Fixed ISO beds not working in multiplayer
• Fixed NPC eye problems
• Changed name of pivot to hinge in scripts
• Changed Puja salad to native salad
• Changed block textures
• Tweaked Tariq mission so that players can fight the Pujans
• Tweaked Peter mission so that players can fight the Pajans
• Tweaked monster beacon animal spawn types
• Tweaked McTalk structure placement distance
• Tweaked the level of ambient sounds
• Tweaked Andy ingame aid
• Tweaked fatigue animation so that it’s further apart
• Tweaked ISO weapon aim
• Tweaked building UI so that icons grays out when in voxel building mode
• Added prompt UI for when something is in the way of building
• Added sound effects
• Added cave pathfinding points in story mode
• Added simple controller support
• Added Kayla’s song
• Added more NPC voiceovers
• Added ISO motorcycle to Allen Carter mission
• Added wooden bow and arrow to the weapons Gerdy gives

Changelist Beta 0.51

• Fixed Allen giving out multiple motorbikes
• Fixed Peter confrontation mission

Another big update plus hotfix has been released for Planet Explorers:

A0.94 Update Released

In this build, we focused on AI attack behavior and the new and Adventure mode terrain rendering (work in progress, some places are sorta flat). We also made it possible for executing custom stories ingame, so now players can make story based custom maps. This is still the basic version with bugs, so we look forward to players giving us feedback regarding the editor and its execution. We also started our optimization of the garbage collection problem, there’s some minor optimization with terrain rendering, that should make the stuttering happen farther apart. We’ve found that most of the stuttering happen while Unity is clearing terrain memory, so we’ll be optimizing that from now on. We hope to see improvement by the next build in early April. We ran through and fixed most of the storyline bugs, players should be able to go all the way to the Negotiations mission now. Starting with the next build, we’ll be adding a lot animation and missions to the storyline. We’ll try to be story complete by a0.96.

Changelist

• Fixed SSAO affecting the digging box height position
• Fixed not being able to open recharger UI in multiplayer
• Fixed not being able to get on motorcycle
• Fixed issue with having the main player being near for a tower defense mission to spawn monsters
• Fixed alien attack mission auto completing when the player gets to far
• Fixed missiles causing the camera to truck closer
• Fixed player and NPC having different relationship with Pajans
• Fixed object placement
• Fixed crystal cave camera bug
• Fixed calling home mission not saving materials
• Fixed vehicle weapons not hurting animals
• Fixed adventure towns npc spawning bug (causing more empty towns than usual)
• Fixed NPC standing too close together
• Fixed skill tree not equipping mining equipment
• Fixed NPC without range weapons still attacking air targets
• Fixed personal AI gun not being able to hit moving birds
• Fixed refill bullets closing the turrets window
• Fixed colony mission pointing to 0,0 point
• Fixed main menu music stopping suddenly
• Fixed mining script and skill tree conflict
• Fixed NPC turning circles while pathfinding
• Fixed GRV not going away after a certain story mission
• Fixed player holding the npc while in Mars colony bug
• Fixed Agnes disappearing from Earth camp
• Fixed NPC with no money showing their name twice
• Fixed Allen not moving in multiplayer when main player logs off
• Fixed multiplayer continue loading when server going offline during load
• Fixed 4X4 particle turret not centered
• Fixed the male gold armor causing the arm to be transparent
• Fixed the greenback rhino bouncing after death
• Fixed getting blood sample from NPCs causing them to get kicked out of colony
• Fixed followers falling off the monorail
• Fixed not being able to dig when in water
• Fixed water not under overhang
• Fixed swimming with pick axe not having animation
• Fixed player able to grab items from colony NPCs
• Fixed effects causing stuttering when used for the first time
• Fixed random NPC dialogue when giving the turret mission
• Fixed water bump not being able to continuously pump water
• Fixed fertilizer sprayer animation
• Fixed not recording numbers for fire mission
• Fixed layerback effect still going after its death
• Fixed Gerdy being on the ground after loading her being carried by Allen Carter
• Fixed NPCs trying to punch when equipped with a gun
• Fixed NPCs still saying hungry and tired when not after a fast travel
• Fixed UI not showing the different between the two different fertilizer sprayers
• Fixed AI attacking another AI blocking its attack line
• Fixed space bar plus hotkey causing problems
• Fixed last ammo causing the player to enter the punch animation
• Fixed aliens running underwater and shooting
• Fixed not being able to continue mission when fast traveling during rescue Gerdy mission
• Fixed NPC talk prompt causing player not being able to raise weapon
• Fixed rocket launcher Pajan stuck in backing up animation when something’s blocking its path
• Fixed Gerdy to Martian colony story logic problem
• Tweaked how far plants are able to be planted so plants are easier to harvest
• Tweaked AI attack behavior
• Tweaked the amount of copper in adventure mode
• Optimized terrain rendering
• Added prompt for when colony does not have enough materials to upgrade
• Added custom turret
• Added Pujan NPC images
• Added debuff effects to NPC UI
• Added a couple of custom maps
• Added Story Editor execution (custom stories can now run ingame)
• Added new and faster adventure mode terrain
• Added selection for turning off shadows for lights
• Added new type 02 jetpack
• Added followers gaining stamina when the player sleeps
• Added NPC returning to base after a vehicle pushes them far
• Added tree falling after being cut
• Added tree falling effect
• Added NPCs getting out of the way when the player walks through them
• Added followers helping to pickup things and cutting trees
• Added picking up ash box
• Added the shockwave gun
• Added UI position saving
• Added personal AI lower power and HP warning
• Added animal foot prints and graves for Ataro mission
• Added putting the monorail cart directly onto the track

Couch spotted that the openworld sandbox adventure game Planet Explorers got a major update:

A0.9 Steam Release

Happy Holidays everyone. Here's the a0.9 build. It's about a year late, and we are truly sorry for that, but sometimes, a major rewrite is needed (in retrospect, it's up for debate). For players updating from a0.87, this is pretty much a new game. Everything has been changed over the last year. This build is a bit rushed, so we expect there to be bugs. We'll straighten these out over the next two weeks. From now on, we'll be updating directly to the release build instead of the beta. We will be releasing a new demo based on the a0.9 build within the next two weeks as well.

A0.9 Changelist:

• Fixed turrets not firing at enemies sometimes
• Fixed turrets not firing when not hit by an enemy
• Fixed jetpack animation
• Fixed NPCs not returning after chasing an enemy
• Fixed grenade projectile motion
• Fixed giant robot enemy weapons projectile motion
• Fixed ISOs disappearing after entering model scene
• Fixed Paja creation error in the desert
• Fixed world map not displaying anything in Adventure Mode
• Fixed turrets filling up durability after being picked up
• Fixed multiple colony UI bugs
• Fixed herbs adding full HP
• Fixed NPC spawning twice in camp
• Fixed repair machines not using resources
• Fixed kicking out NPC from colony and having the NPC disappear
• Fixed issue where some scripts can't be learned
• Fixed issue of being able to pick up the ladder while on it
• Fixed problems with bird projectiles
• Fixed issue with NPCs not stopping for conversation in Adventure Mode
• Fixed fertilizer gun projectile
• Fixed issue with andhera not being scared of light
• Fixed issues with respawning a follower
• Fixed issue with NPCs waiting for food at the colony warehouse
• Fixed issue with follower's HP not being full at the start
• Fixed issue with not being able to assign NPCs to some colony functions
• Fixed multiple coop Story mode bugs
• Changed the arrow hit effect
• Changed comfort level lowering speed
• Changed custom axe orientation
• Changed the range of looting for follow player camera mode
• Changed grenade throwing animations
• Tweaked weapons collision
• Tweaked vehicle driving controls
• Tweaked animal attack timing
• Tweaked shield sizes for colony
• Tweaked some story missions for better presentation
• Tweaked number of herds spawning
• Added animal area attacks hurting over animals nearby
• Added Puja camps to Adventure Mode
• Added new medicines
• Added a new prompt when trying to learn scripts that's already been learned
• Added NPCs putting weapons away when out of ammo
• Added random color to NPC hair
• Added random color for NPC skin
• Added UI element for picking droppings
• Added new story missions
• Added a new story scene
• Added randomized animal sizes
• Added the Trade Post for colony in Story Mode
• Added diplomacy to Story Mode
• Added playable single player custom maps
• Added scenario editor to the World Editor
• Added ability to plant any object and AI in the World Editor
• Added new missions in Adventure Mode

Pathea Games released a new video of Planet Explorers on Steam this week that talks about how they improved the games weather in the next game update.

As we get closer to the release of A0.9, more and more systems are coming together. Here, we show you several new things going on in the game. The weather system has been updated to dramatically improve it's efficiency and effects, rain will no longer fall through buildings and there are more ambient colors around to give a much more consistant look (it's sped up in the vid). We've also updated the grass system so that grass will sway when things go through them, the wind will no longer be in set waves and instead will be random. The water shader has also been updated so that things walking through water will create waves. All of these together will make for a much richer world experience, and best of all, they're very efficient, so the framerate won't be affected much.

We're mostly done with all the game systems that we set out to rewrite, we're waiting for animations to come back from some of our sourcing partners as well as our own inhouse animators (we're trying to do about 2200 new animations) to tweak these systems (such as player, battle, ai, ui). Another problem we've encountered is that the physics in Unity 5 is very different from Unity 4, so we're having to spend more time than we'd like on tweaking some of it (wheel, AI collision, aircraft). But overall, we're pretty close to finishing out a0.9 (yay!).

Pathea Games released a few new game images for Planet Explorers on Steam that talks about how they improved the games graphics from upgrading to Unity 5 in Alpha 0.9.

Hey all, we’ve been moving the entire Planet Explorers project over to Unity 5.0 over the last couple of weeks. There are still some physics and shader related bugs that we’re going over, but, the overall results are pretty nice. 64bits, HDR, better physics, here we come. A0.9 is currently on schedule for late this month.

Pathea Games released a new video of Planet Explorers on Steam this week that talks about how they improved the games UI in the next game update.

Here’s a video of the new UI we’re preparing for a0.9. The new UI is faster and sleeker, it uses a more Windows-like design with a “start” button and a clear screen button. We tried to make the menus simpler in come cases, but game is what it is, so it’s not really possible to hide all the data that needs to be shown. This is still a work in progress, but we hope you like it.

On another note, Unity 5.0 just came out, we’re actively porting our game over to the new version of the engine. There are lots of bugs and changes that we need to make, but we’re going over them one by one. We hope to have this done by the time a0.9 comes out in April.

Pathea Games released a new build of Planet Explorers on Steam this week, and the talked about how they seek to improve the games combat in a different post.

There are a lot of things that still need work in the Planet Explorers alpha, but I think going into a0.9, we all knew that we needed to upgrade the combat system dramatically. We started with the animation and went from there. Pretty much all the key animations have been changed, now the player character will have different animations for hit, run, dash, different weapon types (staff, crossbow, dual wield, etc.), and much more. We've also included IK and ragdoll animations to give variety to all the different animation sets. We tried to make it so that the player isn't fighting with the controls. One thing we're making optional is the ability to attack where the player clicks.

On the AI side, we rewrote/modified the entire behavior tree, plus lots of new animations as well. We want the AI to feel smarter, to be able to dodge swords and bullets, to engage the player more naturally instead of always facing the player and throwing different attacks at a percentage rate as before. We also added in IK hit detection so that each hit from the player generates a visual response from the body of the AI.

Finally, we wanted the combat to have more oomph. Players getting hit by large attacks will fly a long way. Players getting hit with a smaller attack will show reaction from the part of the body that's been hit. We're still in the progress of modifying the camera and the UI so that they show a corresponding reaction with each hit, we'll show off these as they come online. With all of that added together, we hope the combat will become a more satisfying experience for everyone.

Pathea Games posted a progress update for Planet Explorers on Steam this week, and the talked about the latest Alpha version. So for those interested read on.

We've been working really hard over the last month to finish up all the components of a0.9. We're getting there, but there are still lots to do. Many players have asked for an exact date for a0.9, based on our current standing, we're looking at sometimes in March. As to why we went from the original December date to now, it's because we've decided to rewrite the items code as well so that the game can become easily moddable on all fronts. We like to joke around the studio about it, but a0.9 really is turning out to be PE 2.0 as far as programming's concerned: every system except for voxel generation has been tweaked or rewritten. The bad part is that it's taking up a ton of time and the results won't be seen regularly like in games such as Kerbal or Space Engineers (they had more flexible and better programming structure from the start to allow for faster updates). We do sincerely apologize for that as it is a demonstration of our lack of experience when it comes to setting up the structure for this type of game (though in our defense, there weren't a lot of smooth voxel games around as a blueprint). But we've learned a lot and we'll make sure there won't be a repeat of that for any of our future games.

Pathea Games promises a new update for Planet Explores will be released this week.

We’ve been having lots of meetings regarding the progress of A0.9 this months. So far, the main objectives of a new ai behavior system, a new player movement system, a new ui, the world editor, and their incorporation into multiplayer are all moving forward, albeit at different speeds. The world editor is fairly stable and ready for player testing now, while the rest are still a month away at the earliest. So, we’ve decided to put out an a0.86 build before Christmas with the world editor. Before anyone gets too excited, the game can’t currently read the world editor maps yet (the a0.86 build is still based on the a0.85 branch, not the a0.9 branch), but most of the editing functions are in. We’ll try to put in an early version of the story editor as well if we can get it to work smoothly, no promises though.

Another thing to be included in a0.86 will be the block building system LOD. What this does is to allow block buildings to show up at the farthest terrain setting. We’ll also be testing in the future to see if we can get the resolution of blocks down to .25 meters from the current .5 meters.

Pathea Games shares information about the development of Planet Explorers, and posted a new video of the games editor. Here are the details. and new video.

Hope you still remember the World Editor we post a couple weeks ago. Today, we’ll show you more details about it with a video. To remind you, World Editor is one of the major things we’re working on for a0.9. It is a program that enables you to launch and edit a world map in the editor, or import maps from other editors such as World Machine. The main tools we’re going to introduce today are different brushes, auxiliary tools and the artifact, a kind of voxel brush that players can generate and share. One thing that we haven’t finished is that editor UI, so there are lots of empty icons, that will be fixed later. We’re still incorporating the Story and Mission editors into the world editor, so we’ll show those later.

I found a new preview of Planet Explorers on IGC about the games beta version.

For a game about building and taking in beautiful environments you sure do a lot of killing. It’s much like how your first action in Watch_Dogs, a game initially promising to be a more clever affair, is to pull a trigger. It would have been much more fitting to just start you off with a basic pack of supplies and maybe have you avoid some wandering creatures that could kill you in an instant rather than just farming stupid herbivores for their parts like the cyborg from last night’s Doctor Who (Aha, topical reference). There’s no survival to it, and at its worst, it just feels like an MMO farming simulator. Go here. Get ten bear kidneys. Marvel at how some bears don’t have any kidneys. Repeat until you throw up.

Pathea Games announces that Planet Explorers has sold 150,000 copies on Steam.

Planet Explorers Over 150,000 Copies on Steam Early Access

MEMPHIS, Tenn (August 15, 2014) - Planet Explorers, the indie adventure RPG by Pathea Games for PC, has reached over 150,000 in sales since releasing on Steam Early Access in March 2014. Planet Explorers is now at Alpha version 0.831. The game is an open world voxel based adventure RPG set on a distant planet. It uses an OpenCL system based on the Unity3D engine to allow players to change the terrain in any way, create new objects in any form, and do it anywhere. Pathea Games plans to include the first version of a custom world editor starting in Alpha 0.9 by the end of the year. The game retails for $24.99 on Steam.

In Planet Explorers, it is the year 2287, one of the first colony ships sent out by humans arrives at the planet Maria, in the Epsilon Indi Star System. During its landing sequence, something appears in front of the massive ship that causes it to lose control and crash onto the planet. Some of the colonists survive in lifeboats, but what they find is an unforgiving land filled with creatures ready to outlast the visitors from the Solar System. Now the survivors must explorer, gather, build, create, fight, and ultimately, build a new home. 

The gameplay is in 3rd and 1st person perspectives. Players are able to customize their character, combine and create swords, guns, vehicles, objects, and buildings. At the same time, players will have to defeat multitudes of enemies of varying intelligence and defend the remnants of the colonists. The game currently features over 25 hours of gameplay for its RPG storyline. Planet Explorers comes in single and multiplayer. In single player, there are the story, adventure, and build modes; while in multiplayer features coop and pvp seed based maps.

RGZ has posted a short preview of the Early Accees build of Planet Explorers.

Overall, this is a game I will definitely continue playing in the future. I really would have loved to have been able to check out the multiplayer options but there were barely any to no people playing multiplayer at the time. On top of this, most of the games that had players were private. I think this game shows a lot of promise and I am really excited for what the developers will be bringing to Planet Explorers in the future.

Pathea Games has posted information on the Steam forums about a new Alpha update for Planet Explorers. Here are the details of the new patch.

A0.761 Patch

Hey everyone, you'll note that we had the a0.76 patch out last weekend...that was a mistake, we actually only wanted to launched that into the Beta version. Ah, can't do anything about that. Since it was out, we did get to hear what people thought of the bugs and such, so we went ahead and tried to fix some of them with the a0.761 patch. Here's the changelist:

Alpha 0.761 Changelist

Added laser weapon items in Creation Editor
Added motorcycle items in Creation Editor
Added jet items in Creation Editor
Added new vehicle weapon types in Creation Editor
Forward inertia after character dies in a vehicle
Optimized weapon movement and aiming for vehicles
Added field of view slider for camera
Added another 10 slots for saves
Changed the way items are organized in the NPC store
Added the Ostrov Shark (giant fish)
Added the Caelum Rex (giant bird)
Always day time in Build Mode
No ai enemies in start area of Adventure Mode
Added durability to multiplayer
Added oxygen level to multiplayer
Added stamina to multiplayer
Added animal ai options to versus mode
Changed multiplayer day/night cycle so that night is shorter
Added limitations to naming conventions in multiplayer
Added parsing options in multiplayer lobby for game type, server name, room number, etc.
Started using Steam Workshop for ISO storage in multiplayer
Added ISO download failure prompt
Added map marking
Optimized multiplayer memory use and database use
Optimized procedural terrain and resource location
In Windows and Linux, players can now open the client even when the server is still running
Fixed Layerback mission problems
The climate in Adventure mode is now saved
Fixed the lag when exporting multi-barrel guns in multiplayer
Fixed multiplayer saving objects to wrong location
Fixed female character unable to climb ladders
NPCs on patrol will now stop to have a conversation with player
Fixed some plants crashing the game when gathering them
Fixed colony repair machine causing crashes
Some resources have their limit upped to 9999

We've now moved on to a0.8. That build's contents are going well, I think you'll really like some of the new things we're adding. We're aiming for early May release.

Gizorama played the Steam Early Access version of Planet Explorers, and decided to post a new preview to share their opinion on the game.

Overall Planet Explorers is a fun game which certainly has its good qualities, but there are few things that truly make it stand out among a crowded PC market. Still, I applaud the game for the things it does right, namely its huge open world and fascinatingly odd creatures. I look forward to seeing the final product.

Robert Cram of cramgaming has posted a new video were he shows off the first 30 minutes story mode in Planet Explorers. So beware of spoilers if you watch it.

Planet Explorers – First 30 minutes Story Mode

Take a look at the opening 30 minutes of the Story mode in the recently released early access game on Steam, Planet Explorers which plunges players on a planet ready for colonization. What this means is players can craft, survive and take over.  The video only scratches the surface of this massive game, so if you want more details then head on over to the Steam store page.

About Planet Explorers:

Planet Explorers is an open world sandbox adventure RPG game developed by Pathea Games set on a distant planet. The game uses a new OpenCL calculated voxel system to allow players to change the terrain in any way, create new objects such as weapons, vehicles, objects, and do it anywhere.

Rock, Paper, Shotgun has a new hands-on preview based on the Early Access version of Planet Explorers. Here is a small part to see if it catches your interest.

The title of the game is direct, to be sure. In Planet Explorers, a planet exploration game by Pathea Games, there is a planet, and you explore it. If that doesn’t sound like enough, there’s also resource gathering, crafting, building, and tons of alien creatures to discover, by which I mean “slaughter and turn into money.” Get ready, innocent alien planet! Humans have arrived, and we’ve brought hunting, real estate development, and capitalism.

There’s a little movie explaining the game’s central predicament, but here’s the abridged version: some colonial spaceships have crashed on an alien planet, so get out there and start exploring! Well, start exploring in a bit. First, there’s my shipmate, Gerdy Hooke, to attend to. She’s injured, see, and needs me to do her a bunch of favors, like chop some wood, fetch some water, and make a campfire, all in service of introducing me to the game’s crafting system.

Pathea Games has released two more updates on Steam for Planet Explorers. The first update is about a new patch, and mentions the game will be at GDC 2014.

A0.751 Patch and GDC

We have our first Steam patch with a0.751. This patch fixes a lot of bugs, mostly for multiplayer. The change list is below:

Please note that when joining multiplayer once you've updated, you will need to join the servers that say A0751 and not the older version servers.

Unless we're doing bug patches, the next update should be coming in about ~2 weeks, it's not a major update, but will contain some new content. The major update will be a0.8, which should be ~late April. For a0.8, we want to include saving building structures as ISOs and making them share-able; adding in building block LOD to save on memory; adding in ai attacks on camps and colonies; DOTA like tree structure for item replication; missions in adventure mode; character select in multiplayer; new story missions; and more.

Finally, we will have a booth in the corner (since we signed up so late) at GDC Play at GDC in San Fran next week, so if any of you are going, drop by and say hi!

The second update is about another patch that was released this week.

A0.752 Patch

Planted plants now have texture
Fixed bug of unable to exit vehicle
Fixed unable to repair sentries
Fixed voxels filling in again once a player gets far away in multiplayer (no more mine collapse)
Fixed trees not giving resin and plant fiber in multiplayer
Fixed rubber trees not giving rubber in multiplayer
Fixed Mac OSX 10.9.1+ crash
Cockpit cannot be tilted anymore
Optimized creation system camera
Added in new Battleship vtol build type 30X60X24 meters

And yes, our main board is broken, not sure why yet (but my guess is the stress), we're looking into it.

Also, our lobby server is getting a lot of traffic as well, it's a much better server, so it should withstand it. We do want to clear a time every week to reset it, probably Thursday mornings. Some players have trouble logging on sometimes, this is probably due to multiple players trying to log on at once, just wait a bit and try again. We will try to have multiple lobby servers in the future, but we'll need time to implement that code.

Pathea Games announces Planet Explorers is now available on Steam Early Access.

Well, we're on Steam!

We've been developing Planet Explorers for over 2 years now, and it's finally made it onto Steam Early Access. We want to thank all of you for your support in getting us here!

As with any Early Access title, this game isn't complete. It's still in alpha form. There are lots of bugs and incomplete content. We will be fixing these bugs and adding more features over the next year until completion hopefully by year end 2014. Our update schedule will have major updates spaced by about a month apart, while smaller updates and fixes will be much more often. One thing I can promise is that each major update will have lots of content.

For new players, I want to tell you that you can count on us in keeping you up to date on the development of the game as well as getting things done. We will make mistakes and probably release updates that some of you will dislike. But we will try to make a great game to the best of our ability. There's actually a demo you could try here: http://planetexplorers.pathea.net/download/

Now I'm going to get into more technical stuff. This game requires opencl from the gpu or cpu. Pretty much all DX10.1 cards support this feature, so normally, it's just a driver update away if you didn't have it already. We also included the cpu opencl option in the launcher options. So if you crash at the start of the game, go to launcher options and select "Cpu" in the opencl calculation options.

Anyway, that's all for now, have fun and please report any bugs on the board and we'll take it from there. And also be sure to visit our site here for the latest news on Planet Explorers: http://planetexplorers.pathea.net

Pathea Games shares information that Alpha version 0.75 for Planet Explorers is now available to all backers, and that the game will shortly be on Steam Early Access.

A0.75 is here!

While we’re still waiting for Steam to approve of our build and release it on Steam, here’s the A0.75 PC build. We’ll release the other two platform builds next week.

Direct Download from Mediafire

If you’re looking for the optimum performance, the first things you can tweak are grass distance and amount, changing these to normal or lower will give you at least 10fps. Next would be water reflection, turn that off will give you another 10fps. Finally, tweaking the shadow distance will also give you large performance gains. For memory reduction, turn down the amount of grass, trees, and terrain.

Pathea Games shares information about a new Alpha update for Planet Explorers.

A0.75 Update #2

We’re just a few days away from the a0.75 build. We’ll try to get it out by this Saturday here, but as you know, it’s never a sure thing. We’re still working on Steam and launcher integration (all 3 platforms) and will be testing that out over the next few days. Hopefully, there will be no problems (if there are problems, we’ll probably launch with PC first). If everything goes smoothly there, we’ll submit the build to Steam for approval, if they approve, then PE will be on Steam probably by ~midweek next week. That gives us enough time to fix any major bugs that you may find before then.

We’ve been optimizing a lot of the things in the current build, including the terrain formation speed in adventure mode. It is now about 3X what it was in the a0.72 build. What this means is that you won’t fall off the terrain on a glider or car anymore. Vtols are another matter, but players are making these go at 300-400km/h and we can’t really help that. Another thing about adventure mode is that there are multiple biomes within a single seed now.

We’re still working on block building lod, water physics, and multiplayer general testing, these things will decide when exactly the build will be done.

Shakes Pub has a video preview for Planet Explorers on why the game is fantastic.

Planet Explorers is like a breath of fresh air for the action, adventure, rpg genre. It makes me feel like I'm a kid again reading a great science fiction novel by Isaac Asimov. This game can be enjoyed by kids as well as adults and the sense of adventure, discovery, and ability create is only really limited by your imagination. With all of the game modes and features this game has to offer it should do very well. This video is the first in a new series so join Shake as he embarks on his Planet Explorer adventure...cheers!

Pathea Games announces a new Alpha update for Planet Explorers.

A0.75 Update

We’re coming up pretty quickly to the end of the month, so we’re trying to get as much in as possible before the Steam build. We’re working on several notable areas for the build, they include: the farm building for the settlement, Steam integration for the launcher (across all 3 platforms), more Creation Editor features, voxel water (maybe flowing) and new water shader, better building controls and shaders, tweaking player controls, starting first person control design (what a lot of you want), ai optimization, more enemies and bosses (especially for multiplayer), rainforest biome, and story extension. We want to get the build out before February ends, so we will cut whatever’s not done when the time comes. So far, it looks like everything’s safe.

Pathea Games has a new update for Planet Explorers about Steam Early Access.

Steam Early Access

It’s February, 2014. If you remember correctly, we said Planet Explorers would be out by now back on Kickstarter (if you don’t remember, go straight to paragraph two!). Obviously, it’s not. We do apologize for that. We were a little too optimistic with our schedule and personnel acquirement (and frankly, making a RPG is harder than we expected). The game also expanded in scope by quite a bit. So in the end, we have to revise our schedule. We aim to have the game in final form before the end of 2014. This is a lot more realistic and much more attainable. The Kickstarter items will be sent out when that happens. But, hopefully, after following this game for over half a year now, you will have seen enough to trust in us to not only finish this game but make it worth your time.

Which brings us to the next point: Steam. We’re currently selling the preorder for Planet Explorers on our site, it’s doing decently in sales, but we’re not close to breaking even each month. Thus, we’re always very conservative with our budget and it’s been working out for us so far. But, our cash reserve is decreasing, and if we want to make Planet Explorers into a great game, we need to hire a few more developers (from 28 to ~35). For that, we will need the revenue that being on Steam Early Access can bring.

We plan to release our first Steam Early Access build when Alpha 0.75 comes out, probably in the last week of February. What does this mean for you? Anyone with a key already will get a corresponding Steam key. Anyone who doesn’t want to play on Steam can still use our standalone program and we will continuously update the download versions on our own site as well. The first version of Steam of course won’t be perfect in integrating all the Steam functions, but we will try to take advantage of Steam features such as the Workshop and voice chat in game in the future.

For our release schedule, it’ll mean shorter duration and less new content in each new build. We won’t be doing the 4 months that it took to get a0.7 out the door anymore, even though some people actually liked that. From Steam on, it’ll be about 1 to 1.5 months inbetween each build during the rest of alpha.

Pathea Games has sent a new press release about Planet Explorer. The game has reached a new Alpha milestone, and has a new demo.

Planet Explorers Reaches Alpha 0.72 with New Demo Release

MEMPHIS, Tenn (January 22, 2014) - Planet Explorers, the indie adventure RPG game by Pathea Games has reached the alpha 0.72 build. Many new features have been added since the previous build, including a new block based building system, a new Creation System, a new grass system, new storylines, new npc characters, new multiplayer functions, and more. The most improved feature in this build is the multiplayer aspect of the game, with coop and pvp now fully playable on a 40X40 kilometer random seeding based map. A new demo based on the a0.72 build have also been released. The demo features the Story Mode and Build Mode. The storyline in the demo lasts for 2-3 hours.

In Planet Explorers, it is the year 2287, one of the first colony ships sent out by Earth arrives at the planet Maria, in the Epsilon Indi Star System. During its landing sequence, something appears in front of the massive ship that causes it to lose control and crash into the planet.
Some of the colonists survive in lifeboats, but what they find is an unforgiving land filled with creatures ready to outlast the visitors from Earth. Now the survivors must explorer, gather, build, create, fight, and ultimately, build a new home.

The gameplay is in 3rd and 1st person perspectives. Players are be able to customize their character, combine and create swords, guns, vehicles, and buildings. At the same time, players will have to defeat multitudes of enemies of varying intelligence and defend the remnants of the colonists. There is also a mission system that features NPCs giving the player goals to achieve to advance the storyline. Planet Explorers features single player and multiplayer. The game costs $22 to preorder on Planet Explorers' website. Planet Explorers was featured in a successful Kickstarter campaign as well as successfully green lite on Steam Greenlight.

Planet Explorers Preorder: http://planetexplorers.pathea.net/order/

Alpha 0.72: http://planetexplorers.pathea.net/download/

Alpha 0.72 Demo: http://planetexplorers.pathea.net/download/

Pathea Games has a new post-funding update for Planet Explorers with a new Alpha version for eveyone for X-mas.

And a Merry Christmas to you, here’s a gift!

PE Alpha 0.7 PC Torrent: http://www.pathea.net/a07pc.torrent 

PE Alpha 0.7 Mac Torrent: http://www.pathea.net/a07mac.torrent 

PE Alpha 0.7 Linux Torrent: http://www.pathea.net/a07linux.torrent

Speed will be faster once we get more stuff uploaded to some seeds.

Direct Links forthcoming.

Alright, after working on this for almost 5 months, we’ve finally finished the initial version of alpha 0.7. Now, it’s not completely bug free, that’s for sure, so we will be putting out a a0.71 version for sure. In fact, some last minute multiplayer syncing bugs almost kicked this build to next year (we fixed them in the eleventh hour). We actually tried to do a little too much for a0.7, and some of the experiments failed. We tried to do realtime cubemap based ambient lighting. It worked, but the frame rate took a dive to around 15fps even on the HD7970. So it went out the window. We also wanted to write a sound program that runs outside Unity in parallel for all the sounds of the game so you don’t get a hiccup when Unity does garbage collection (Unity’s Mono is really old, so garbage collection takes longer than it should, and doesn’t seem to work all too well anyway). We were waiting to see if Unity will upgrade their Mono with Unity 4.3, they didn’t, and by the time we knew that, there wasn’t enough time to add this feature. So you’ll still get awkward skips in sound and music in this build.

Pathea Games has a new post-funding update announcing a new "Name the Moon Contest" for Planet Explorers.

For those of you who backed Planet Explorers the developers have announced that a new alpha version is ready for testing.

Planet Explorers brings another update on their kickstarter. The update is mostly about  the projects success and other information.

Planet Explorers brings a new update on their kickstarter page. The update basically explains were the kickstarter is heading.

What a week for Planet Explorers. We've hit the goal on KS, and a few days later, we're approved for Steam. This is all thanks to your support. On Greenlight, out of all the people that voted, 76% voted yes, that's much higher than the 58% average of the top 50. What that tells us is that Planet Explorers has hit the balance between hardcore and casual just right, at least in initial impressions and expectations. Now, we're fully aware of the pressure to deliver, and we will work all the hard to live up to these expectations.

The Kickstarter will end in less than 48 hours, please continue to help us spread the word on the project and try to push the final number as high as possible. Development isn't cheap, so the more cash reserves we have, the less pressure we have to spend time looking for extra budget. We will run an extension of the KS tiers for an extra 40 days through Paypal on our site. After a0.6, we'll presell the game on our site. That should pretty much solve our budget shortfall and we won't have to worry about money and just focus on getting the game done.

Regarding Steam's Early Access, I know many of you want to play games in Steam so that they're all located in the same place. But, we will not put the game on Steam until we feel the game's ready for prime time, which means probably not until beta 0.1. The first batch of Early Access games have not been received well by some player, we don't want that negativity. The launcher we'll have for a0.6 will be able to give you the patch updating most of you want, so it should be more convenient anyway.

We are going to try to test multiplayer before the release of a0.6, so the backers that want to host a server, please contact us at admin@pathea.net. We will probably do some tests in early May, so we will need your help then.

Planet Explorers has two new updates on there kickstarter. The updates gives informaion on the player character, and mentions the game has been greenlighted on Steam.

Another kickstarter that is late in the news. The game is called Planet Explorers. The game only needs a litttle more to reach it's goal. Please spread the word to help the project.

Planet Explorers is an open world voxel based sandbox adventure RPG game set on a distant planet. The game uses a new OpenCL system based on the Unity 3D engine to allow players to change the terrain in anyway, create new objects in any form, and do it anywhere.

In Planet Explorers, it is the year 2287, one of the first colony ships sent out by Earth arrives at the planet Maria, in the Epsilon Indi Star System. During its landing sequence, something appears in front of the massive ship that causes it to lose control and crash into the planet. Some of the colonists survive in lifeboats, but what they find is an unforgiving land filled with creatures ready to outlast the visitors from Earth. Now the survivors must explore, gather, build, create, fight, and ultimately, establish a lasting new home.

The gameplay will be in 3rd and 1st person perspectives. Players will be able to customize their character, combine and create weapons, vehicles, and buildings. At the same time, players will have to defeat multitudes of enemies of varying intelligence and defend the remnants of the colonists. This is an RPG, so it will feature a full story arc complete with missions and side quests. The game will feature a single player story line as well as random single and multiplayer adventure maps. Multiplayer, both through LAN and online, will be featured prominently in Planet Explorers, including but not limited to build mode, adventure mode, cooperation mode, and versus mode.