By John Walker on September 21st, 2011 at 5:43 pm.
There are a fair number of games where after playing them, in fact years after playing them, you tip your head back and scream at the sky, “WHY AREN’T THERE MORE GAMES LIKE THIS?!” Ico is definitely one of those for me. So I’m delighted to hear from David Board, an indie developer who is attempting to fill that particular gap. Lifeless Planet is an action adventure that focuses on the adventure, which appears to involve exploring. Oh thank goodness.
Take a look at the completely gorgeous trailer:
The story seems pretty intriguing too. For reasons not yet known, people are exploring for a planet that can support life. Believing that he’s struck upon an undiscovered world, when exploring the central astronaut in fact finds an abandoned Russian laboratory from many years ago. Which is… spooky.
However, production of the game now seems to depend on a successful Kickstarter project. We’re uncomfortable suggesting people pay money for projects we haven’t played, from unknown developers, for all the obvious reasons. However, you have your own mind. You can pre-order the game for a $10 donation.
It’s one I’m definitely going to keep an eye on.
Thanks for the love, RPS and John! You rock!!!
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Wow!
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Wow, that looks fabulous. Obviously rough around the edges in it’s alpha state, but I really like where this concept could go.
Slightly annoyed by the random “shock” injected at the end of the trailer.
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Looks very clever, and way to name drop… Ico… hehe. Tosses a tenner on the table… take my damn money…
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Looks interesting! I hope they find a way to break from the sluggish movement though, the environments look large so traipsing around could be a little annoying. Jet packs could save the day (don’t really see enough of them in motion to tell). Fingers crossed, this could be a gem!
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abigbat: Yes, this is definitely a point of focus as we design the levels…we’re working hard to make sure we convey the sense of vastness without making you…actually…traverse…miles of terrain!
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That movement looked pretty representative of the range of motion you have in an EVA suit to me (old enough to have watched the Apollo missions live.)
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great stuff, will be following this one closely!
@Torgen I agree that it is realistic, but game mechanics win over realism every time.
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Sometimes realism is a game mechanic.
… I do agree that hiking miles at a snail’s pace in a space suit might get a bit old, though. ;)
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wow! russians on mars, АЭЛИТА!
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Terra Nova eh? EH?
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Reminds me of the movie Apollo 18.
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Well there’s the least expected use of Soviets as the bad guys of the year. I wish that blue woman wasn’t at the end of the trailer…
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Well…don’t want to spoil the plot, but the Russians in the story are not so much bad as…human. We humans mean well usually, but often end up mucking things up…
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The fact that the lab is apparently abandoned suggests that something has happened to the russians, so they’re perhaps not the villains. Or are they?
Dun dun dun!
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I thought showing the “stargate” in the trailer was the worst spoiler. Up to then, I was intrigued about finding out how the Russians got there before the mid-1990s.
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Ya forward to :57 seconds, the Stargate is either a hilarious Easter egg, an alien artifact, or the key to the Russian presence. I’m very interested though in seeing how this project turns out. I’m the kind of gamer who spends hundreds of hours just exploring off to the side of quests/goals in games like Oblivion and Fallout hoping to find interesting scenery, encounters or events. A game designed around that sort of play could end up being a masterpiece of sublime cognitive exploration or very, very dull.
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@torgen
looks more like the time travel portal from star trek: TOS episode ‘city on the edge of forever’.
very, VERY interested in this :)
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This really reminds me (on the surface) of old Colobot.
The story doesn’t make much sense from a scientific viewpoint, but both it and the gameplay seems incredibly cool!
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Darn you @Dreamhacker for pushing my nostalgia button! Now I have to go home and re-install Colobot for a march down Memory Lane. You really should be more considerate you know – you realize I have Witcher 2, Black Ops, Far Cry 2, DX1, R.U.S.E., and Mini Ninjas yet to get through? And some of those are second runs, too! I think you’re putting something in my cereal, tbh.
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You’re welcome. Colobot is a big part of the forces that pushed me into the software engineering profession.
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This reminds me of the webseries about a young, dying astronaut who suddenly enters Earth’s atmosphere in a spaceship and then tells Nasa that he’s the son of russian astronauts that currently live on Mars. Unfortunately I don’t remember the name of this show.
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I had the same exact thought. The series is called Pioneer One released through VODO.
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This looks cool. I’ll be trusting John to keep an eye on this one.
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The creator of this game bears an uncanny resemblance to David Cross, he of Arrested Development fame.
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And that blue lady at the end bears a striking resemblance to Tobias Funke.
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Waiting for the terrifying, distant thud-thud of a Golem walker.
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USA, eh? What a shame, they stopped their space program just a tiny bit too soon.
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Backed for $10. I would back for more but I’m on a tight budget.
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Oh man! This looks great. Like a game of Apollo 18, but good. We shall have to see. Sad I have no money to back the thing.
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Relevant Russian joke:
” – How do you think, can there be life on Mars?”
” – Not better than here.”
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If anyone’s interested, this is the book that appears in the trailer. Also, the words said by a woman at the end are “devil is coming”.
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Yes indeed…and just fyi while I do lift a couple themes from that book for the plot it’s not a retelling of the book in any way. Just used it to add some richness to the story…will say no more or I’ll be spoiling!
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Where is the trailer that should be on the big white empty spot i see in the post ?
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If we really do walk as slow as an astronaut while we explore the entire surface of an uncharted planet, I will blow my brains out. Realism be damned, give me a space-horse or some shit.
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Hi Twerty, yes as I mentioned above this is a definite concern for us as well! Trust me we’ll make a game that plays at a proper pace…I’m not up for slow-walking for hours either!
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give me a space-horse or some shit.
Here you go.
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Maybe the hoverboard from UT3!
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@hodge
It’s beautiful!
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It looks like the guy is stumbling into a Russian version of Red Faction. A brief plot summary of the movie “Aelita: Queen of Mars” (based on the book he finds):
“It primarily tells of a young man, Los [Parker], traveling to Mars in a rocket ship, where he leads a popular uprising against the ruling group of Elders [Ultor], with the support of Queen Aelita [Eos]
who has fallen in love with him after watching him through a telescope.”(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aelita)
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Nash is dead, you’re on your own.
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top the game top the items for gamethat there can help everybody play the game so easy,I hope everybody will like them very much,welcome to http://url7.me/V0i4
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Definitely promising.
I’d have liked a “if we get more money then necessary we’ll give you more content” rather than “we’ll go on more platforms”, though. (see trailer on their site)
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…It was Earth all along. Certainly looks that way anyway.
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YOU MANIACS!!! etc.
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Man! It’s the Nodes Of Yesod all over again.
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YESOD!
KG
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In many ways this looks so Uru it hurts, perhaps with more exploration and less puzzles, coming more in line with Journey.
I want this. Quite a lot. It looks amazing.
/add_to_list
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So uru it hurts?
Hurtu?
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Potentially!
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I sometimes think the Soviets could easily have won the Cold War if they spent even half as much money on their economy as they did on time travel, intergalactic exploration, super soldier programs, dreamworld navigation and millions of doomsday weapons.
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Hahaha, you silly! The Cold War wasn’t a real thing.
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Not in that alternate timeline the Russians created with their intergalactic dreamworld doomsday devices, at least.
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These damn kickstarters are getting more expensive every day. A $5 minimum pledge for… a wallpaper? What happened about pledge $5 get access to beta? And the bigger pledges are just ridiculous.
Is it just me or is something wrong with how these projects calculate their prices?
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THE ROCKS
THEY KILL US ALL
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Exploring a lifeless planet looking for artifacts? Sounds like Mass Effect 1′s uncharted worlds.
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The clear sign that this is a work of fiction is that the US still has a space program in the near future.
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I hope this turns out to be “Penumbra is space”
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You bastards! You blew it all up! [Fistshake.]
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So you are on a habitable planet, but you still need to wear your spacesuit and the gravity’s so low that the planet can’t possibly have an atmosphere?
Am I the only one who sees a flaw in this?
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A “Flaw”, yes. I think it’s a mytery that needs explanation. If nothing comes, then it will be a flaw. So far it’s a part of the pitch.
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Habital have always been a word to describe a planet which have the proper requirements for life… Not if you could or could not walk without spacesuit on it. Also to point out, if you would crash on a planet that by theory would support air would you still take the chance to remove your spacesuit? I don’t see a reason why this person would remove the suit as long as it provides him with air and “safety”. And finally the most important aspect. It’s a game. They aren’t mented to be 100% realistic, in fact games that strives towards that tends to flop.
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This looks very intriguing, best of luck to the developers!
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It’s been said before, but Wow! That gave me goose bumps!
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Looks bloody lovely.
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From Randy Smith’s Edge column, I get the impression that Tiger Style (those from “Spider: The Secret of Bryce Manor” fame) are working on a project that shares some idea(l)s with this one… although for iPad.
Which shouldn’t take anything away from the interest this sparked. I’m gonna have one of my good eyes on this project. Thanks for pointing it out.
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Want. To. Play. This. Badly.
Seriously. One hell of a pitch. I don’t want more videogame like that, I want ONLY videogame like that ^^
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Looking good, I may have to kick you some cash for this one…
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Yup I recon I can chuck 10 of your US dollars at this one without too much worry. WHOOPEE! I AM MY OWN MAN! or something similar.
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This. Could be something I might enjoy a lot – exploration and mysterious worlds ftw! Will watch it.
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Looks lovely…. but an empty mostly flat planet might be more atmospheric than interesting to explore. Needs more platforming!
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