Shattered Planet is a new RPG apps / game from Execution Labs. You are an explorer employed by the Galactic Union, and your job is to explore the galaxy to which you’ve been sent. More specifically, the object of the game is to discover and catalog all of the enemies, weapons, armor and more. As you do this, you achieve new research levels, which earn you rewards.
Shattered Planet is an Engaging Journey Through Galaxies
You are actually a clone of sorts, and your home base is on a ship. On this ship you outfit yourself for your next foray into uncharted territory. You use a random object generator – ROSA – to create items for yourself, and you can also upgrade your stats: strength for attack power, wit in order to evade enemy attacks, and health to increase your hit points. Nice and simple.
When you leave the safety of your ship, the idea is to fully explore each map, gathering resources and cataloging new discoveries as you go. You’ll need to defend yourself on your way to the teleporter, which allows you to move to the next level. There is a time limit of sorts, in that from the point you start in the level, a black slime slowly spreads out, and if you walk over it you take a fair amount of damage. The fact that you are a clone comes in handy when you die. You lose the items that you had equipped, but you simply go back to your ship and start again.
Beautiful New Worlds
The look and the style of the game rocks. The levels are made up of a grid of floating squares which you walk across. The textures and landscapes are cool and have plenty of variety, whether you’re in an outdoor setting with lush vegetation, or an indoor-ish one with more of a cold, metallic theme to it. There are a bunch of different enemies, weapons, items, disguises and more (even different characters for you to use), and they are well-conceived and executed.
I enjoyed the soundtrack; it has a very out-there-in-the-middle-of-nowhere feel to it, which is quite fitting based on the plot. The sound effects were pretty good too. There are some good ones like the static during communications, and some miscellaneous computer sounds, but a few that were nothing to write home about, namely the attack and teleporter effects.
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The movement controls are the typical tap-where-you-want-to-go, and the game automatically routes you the appropriate way across the grid. This works perfectly in practice. The attack controls are pretty forgiving, and as long as an enemy is directly adjacent to your square on the grid, if you tap in their vicinity, you’ll attack them.
Space Exploration is Good Fun!
SP is quite entertaining. It’s pretty challenging, especially right off the bat. This can be encouraging or discouraging depending on your style, but the fact that you never truly “die” helps ease any frustration that may arise from this (though it does suck when you lose an awesome set of items). Because the levels randomly re-generate each time you play them, SP offers a good deal of replay-ability. There is even a daily reward, which is a motivator for some to come back for more.
It’s a lot of fun upgrading, discovering new items and encountering all sorts of enemies, and having a different set-up every time you leave for an exploration trip. The game even has a sense of humor. There is a katana is described as being “sharper than 1000-year-old cheese”, and a royal crown that is “traditionally used to mark those born with more luck than sense”.
I should also note that I did experience a few crashes. This is always frustrating, but especially so because of the nature of this game. When you get on a good run of gathering and exploring, and then lose all of that because the game crashes, it doesn’t exactly leave you with a warm and fuzzy feeling.
Final Verdict
Shattered Planet’s simple interface, challenging game-play, and great graphics, as well as the tons of objectives in the form of discoveries make this game a blast. The endlessly replayable levels keep it fresh and allow you to progress without getting bored. Perfect to play for ten minutes or two hours, Shattered Planet is a must-have.
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