Sci-fi Management Sandbox Plan B: Terraform is Coming to Steam in Early 2023

[TheLostSwede]

Gaddy Games founder Nicolas Gadenne is proud to announce his new project, Plan B: Terraform, that will be coming to Steam Early Access in Early 2023. After more than three years in the making, the French indie developer is eager to put the game in the hands of players and evolve it following the community feedback. Nicolas Gadenne, who previously created the successful survival 2D sandbox Dig or Die (more than 250K copies sold on Steam), defines his new creation as a "calm and contemplative science-fiction management sandbox game with a strong emphasis on automatization based on a credible near future. Plan B: Terraform also offers an educational approach on greenhouse effect and water cycle mechanisms".

Manage a newly discovered planet, contemplate your world evolve and grow your population. Mine resources, process and transport them to the cities to keep colonizing. With the mission of terraforming the planet to make it inhabitable, the player will have to warm up the atmosphere, form rivers, oceans and grow forests.




Game Features

• Extract minerals, transform and transport them to the cities, so that they can expand.
• Build terraforming devices, such as greenhouse gas factories, in order to progressively warm up the atmosphere, make the ice melt and make rain fall, until rivers and oceans form. Then, when the conditions are met, you will be able to plant trees and watch them grow into large forests.
• Huge planetary scale playground, composed of more than a million hexagons.
• The "real" terraformation of a planet, with a global and real-time simulation of temperature, vegetation, rain and water flowing to form dynamic rivers and oceans.
• Radical evolution of the population, from a few inhabitants to a million and more.

View at TechPowerUp Main Site | Source

 

[DeathtoGnomes]

This looks like Surviving Mars and other similar micro management type games. fun to play at first, poor repeat play, slow becomes tedious and boring ( after several hours of enjoyment).

 

[Frick]

So release in 2026 or something?

This looks like Surviving Mars and other similar micro management type games. fun to play at first, poor repeat play, slow becomes tedious and boring ( after several hours of enjoyment).

This is tangential, but how many hours should one expect to get out of a game? I'm always baffled by the reviewers with hundreds of hours (or +1000) in a $25 game and they call it a dissapointment.

 

[Space Lynx]

really bad name to be honest, most people that see Plan B, will stop reading and think its something else lmao

 

[Frick]

Also it's an affront (hyperbole) that you report on this but not the biggest gaming news in the last decade.

I mean oh wow another EA title that sure looks interesting but will not be released in ... ever, I assume.

 

[dgianstefani]

Looks like a phone game.

 

[ZoneDymo]

So release in 2026 or something?



This is tangential, but how many hours should one expect to get out of a game? I'm always baffled by the reviewers with hundreds of hours (or +1000) in a $25 game and they call it a dissapointment.

Well imagine watching a movie, its a cool movie and really builds up a mystery, constandly disproving what you are guessing might be going on...and in the end, what was the whole idea? what was the twist? what was going on?
oh...ermm it was all a dream....

sure you can say you had fun during the movie....but it all leading to that? basically everything you were told during the movie was a lie and a complete waste of time.
Thats how does hundreds of hours games can be (and often are, because people are bad and writing stories)>

 

[Frick]

Well imagine watching a movie, its a cool movie and really builds up a mystery, constandly disproving what you are guessing might be going on...and in the end, what was the whole idea? what was the twist? what was going on?
oh...ermm it was all a dream....

sure you can say you had fun during the movie....but it all leading to that? basically everything you were told during the movie was a lie and a complete waste of time.
Thats how does hundreds of hours games can be (and often are, because people are bad and writing stories)>

But in sandbox games without stories is where I see these complaints the most. Or "the dev have abandoned it DO NOT BUY" and they have literally thousands of hours in it.

 

[TheLostSwede]

Also it's an affront (hyperbole) that you report on this but not the biggest gaming news in the last decade.

I mean oh wow another EA title that sure looks interesting but will not be released in ... ever, I assume.

Sorry, what did I miss?

 

[DeathtoGnomes]

Sorry, what did I miss?

Nothing, move along.

So release in 2026 or something?



This is tangential, but how many hours should one expect to get out of a game? I'm always baffled by the reviewers with hundreds of hours (or +1000) in a $25 game and they call it a disappointment.

Addiction to poor quality games is a real thing, but each of us have our own reason for putting in that many hours. When it appears a dev gives up bug fixing and adding content, yea its a disappointment. I've harped on a few games that the devs refuse to fix specific bugs, or when they wont interact with the community. When that happens, gamers digress into trying to shame the devs into fixing it with review bombs, the abandonware road.

 

[mechtech]

terraform planet to Canadian winter

 

[Nordic]

So release in 2026 or something?



This is tangential, but how many hours should one expect to get out of a game? I'm always baffled by the reviewers with hundreds of hours (or +1000) in a $25 game and they call it a dissapointment.

I aim for $2 an hour or better with my game purchases. If I don't think I will play a game mode than 10 hours, then I won't pay more than $20. I will wait as long as I have to for sales. I also justify buying dlc for games like stellaris. I have enough hours in the game that buying a dlc or two is still under $2 an hour of gameplay.

 

[Frick]

Sorry, what did I miss?

DF coming to Steam and Itch of course! It's literally the most important computer related thing tl happen in the last decade, and that is a figurative fact.

Anyway I'll add this game to the wishlist and see how it shapes up, but I have a good amount of similar games on there and I'm frankly kinda done with the EA model as most games seem to use it. Supporting the devs while they make their way to 1.0 is largely ok, eternal goalpost shifting and no hint of what even 1.0 means is not.

 

[TheLostSwede]

DF coming to Steam and Itch of course! It's literally the most important computer related thing tl happen in the last decade, and that is a figurative fact.

Anyway I'll add this game to the wishlist and see how it shapes up, but I have a good amount of similar games on there and I'm frankly kinda done with the EA model as most games seem to use it. Supporting the devs while they make their way to 1.0 is largely ok, eternal goalpost shifting and no hint of what even 1.0 means is not.

DF? Itch? As in itch.io?
Sorry, but if you're going to explain something, explain it properly, as I have no idea what you're talking about here.

 

[Frick]

DF? Itch? As in itch.io?
Sorry, but if you're going to explain something, explain it properly, as I have no idea what you're talking about here.

Heathen. Dwarf Fortress.

 

[TheLostSwede]

Heathen. Dwarf Fortress.

Happy now?

The Legendary Dwarf Fortress Gets a Whole New Look on December 6th

After years of hard work, developer Bay 12 Games and publisher Kitfox Games are thrilled to announce that the highly anticipated, and newly inviting Steam and Itch.io PC release of the fabled Dwarf Fortress will release on December 6 for $29.99 USD! Originally released by brothers Tarn and Zach...

www.techpowerup.com

 

[Vayra86]

This looks like Surviving Mars and other similar micro management type games. fun to play at first, poor repeat play, slow becomes tedious and boring ( after several hours of enjoyment).

Yep Surviving Mars does burn out fast. As in 20-30 hours fast.

You can make it challenging for yourself but honestly, to me that feels like keeping busy more so than experiencing something new. That's the thing, once I've seen the whole tree of buildings, most of the fun dies off in this type of game. I always try to keep at it, exploring the systems further etc. but meh.

But the initial hours are very relaxing nonetheless. Its something to go back to perhaps once a year or so, when you've forgotten how most of it went.

Looks like a phone game.

Yeah I get that distinct 'avoid' vibe from it.

Its a trend, indie games that move towards mobile capable UI and mechanics, doing a simple but smart thing to keep a game concept afloat.

Airborne Kingdom is another such example. Its so thin, that one wore out after a whopping 8 hours for me. One playthrough, zero replay value.

 

[DeathtoGnomes]

Its something to go back to perhaps once a year or so, when you've forgotten how most of it went.

haha this is something I do too. Get fed up with one game only to start another.