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Games, Game Reviews

Keeplanet (PC) Review

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Developer/Publisher: BiggameIncubator || Overall: 5/10

It’s often that I’ll play random games and discover that I like them or hate them.  It’s quite another experience to play a game that brings the question of “why does this exist?”  Keeplanet is more of a game that confuses me more than anything else.  I don’t hate it and I certainly don’t like it, but mostly I just don’t “get” it.  There’s some sort of design philosophy to this title, but the end goal didn’t seem to be “fun.”

Keeplanet‘s concept rides on the principal of “balance.”  You are the “World Commander” of a set of planets in a solar system, your role being to develop the new home for humanity after Earth got blowed up.  Your goal is develop your world by placing objects on the outer rim of the planet and keep the balance of all of the objects such that the world keeps spinning and isn’t dragged down by being too heavy on one side.  You can balance the world on the fly by placing more objects down and hoping you are “calculating” correctly before your world’s inhabitants are killed off from the lack of rotation.  Gravity seems to have taken a vacation from the rules of physics, but there’s stranger things happening in quantum mechanics so anything is possible, I suppose.

There’s nothing that’s inherently fun about the concept of randomly placing objects on the extreme edges of a planet, though.  Not only is it a pain to actually see where you’re placing things, but the planet will get “bigger” as more objects are placed and you put down even more objects between those objects.  Some levels require putting down a hundred or more of these “objects” so you’ll really have to be paying attention to what the hell is going on.  Unfortunately, the game doesn’t really provide you with the tools or information to help you in this manner.  There is a weight scale that defines the weight of the planet’s “left” and “right” (whatever that means) and as the world rotates on its axis and more objects are built, these numbers change constantly.  The goal is to keep these numbers as balanced as possible and the world will rotate.  If it stops rotating, then your population will start dying out from heat and cold and once it reaches zero, it’s game over.

The user interface leaves a lot to be desired.  There’s a large “Play” button on the menu screen that you only use one time, but stays there after you click it.  Selecting your level beckons you to click a WORD that says “Play” not the big Play button that becomes a quick way to close the entire menu and put you back to the Title Screen.  Like, why the hell do I need to go back to the Title Screen at that point?  Just hide the Play button or use it as the level selection.

The information provided regarding objects is basically nonsensical and I just don’t care about the numbers when I have to plop down 300 objects quickly — otherwise I’d be here for 30 minutes for one of these levels and that ain’t happening.  Of course, I die over and over regardless, so I’m stuck playing that long anyway!  I also really don’t get why the outer edges of the planet are the only thing being used; when the planet becomes bigger it becomes impossible to see all parts of the planet without zooming out, which makes the objects you are placing much smaller.  Where’s the joy in placing some stupid ass mountain on a planet if I can’t see it????  Or those dumb trees, for that matter.  There’s no agency here where I can pick which objects I want to place and create a strategy to overcome the task at hand — it’s more of a Tetris with objects being served to you and you dealing with it.  So, some World Commander you are.  Who is building these unwanted mountains for you?  Why not some big speakers that play Spanish music to liven up the place?  There’s also a big wasted space in the center of the planet which I feel could have been used for the user interface information in a more creative way, but instead the UI elements get in the way of the game play, and you mostly just stare at blank space on your screen.  The graphics are generally inoffensive, otherwise.  The sound isn’t that annoying, but there’s a siren that will go off when your population is dying, which can be a bit annoying.

The only real positive aspect of this game is that it is really cheap.  It is currently $1.99 on Steam at full price, so you can probably get it with some Steam balance and check it out if it interests you.  There are probably about twenty levels including the “Challenges.” It’s not particularly impressive, but it works and you can play it.

I don’t really understand why the title of the game is “Keeplanet,” but it probably goes along with the translation errors that can be picked out in the text.  Maybe it’s as simple as “Keep your planet alive.  Keep.  Planet.  Keeplanet.”  ::facepalm::

When it comes to the store’s page, it’s almost comical how weirdly it is worded at points.  Two quotes from the Store page and my analysis:

Develop the planet
In Keeplanet, you create your own history – there’s no right or wrong way to play! Become a world’s landlord, spread out trees, mountains, houses and other objects to make the planet rotate around its axis. Remember, the most important thing is not to let the planet stop. Otherwise, all inhabitants of the planet will die out from sunburn or freezing.

Except there is a right or wrong way to play.  You get game overs when you don’t play the right way!  It says it right in the same paragraph that if you let the planet stop you lose, that’s the definition of having a wrong way to play!

Fight for the humanity
Universe is a dangerous place, protect people from external hazards – meteorites, meteor rains and vigilant aliens are waiting for your mistakes.
Don’t let them break you!

Fighting for “the” humanity = fighting for our morals?

External hazards from outside of the universe?

The vigilant aliens just ram your planet, similar to meteors.  Meteorites are also meteors that have hit the Earth, so are meteors that hit Earth, flying off of Earth across the universe and then hitting your new planet?  What a bunch of assholes.

The same sort of thing happens with the in-game text, but there isn’t nearly as much writing, so there’s less to fuck up.  Some of the English is so broken, they are just words on screen with no association to each other.

Screwed Up Chronicles, People

Essay on the Iceman

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I wrote this in 6th grade for class.

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The Iceman is the best preserved human ever found. He was found in Italy. Nobody knew where he came from or who he was.

The Iceman’s clothing was a cape, shoes with grass on the inside (found only in the Alps), a leather sole in each of his shoes, and ibex shoelaces. He also had a coat made of animal skins and a leather pouch. The Iceman is about 5,300 years old. He was said to have lived in the New Stone Age or “Neolithic Epoch.”

The Iceman had some tools. His tools were: a flint knife and a metal blade ax made of copper with a wooden handle. He also had a quiver of arrows, and a wooden bow.

His copper blade ax had a wooden handle but strangely enough the Neolithic Epoch was before the Copper Age when Copper was first found, so what was a Neolithic man doing with a copper blade for an ax? That’s something that we might never know.

Stories

Apes, Humans, Monkeys

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Apes, humans, monkeys eyes in front of their face easier to grab things, can’t not hitchhike large, forward facing eyes.

New world have strong tails old world don’t new world has flat noses old world has long noses the continents separation made conditions different for each type of world animals homo erectus small, more ape like than modern humans, coudl walk upright, larger brains than reg. apes.

What kind of informatino left by written by them, what kinds of food they were eating.  A wallet or something w/their picture on it.

Heyy Buddy,

Found a homo-erectus fossil and you didn’t.  Aren’t I special?  Neener neener neener!

Sincerely, Dave

Stories

In Search of Human Origins

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3.5 million years ago, Don Johanson, Darwin, Ethiopia, a long mountain range in Africa died naturally, sank into a lake, flesh rotting away, sand and gravel covered the bones, each sand grain turned it into rock they can map out a world different than now was wet and forested the knee joint he was able to tell what kinds of bones it looked like not being able to lock the ash over 3 million years old Lucy 3.5 ft hair they walked upright less bushes, more trees its thought it wasn’t at first 1992 3.5 million small porcupines bring bones in they eat in the trees hunted 18 million you can make a rock sharp tool maker 4 ft. they had strong jaws they stayed near them a lot the marrow they didn’t have anything to kill things with they ate the bone marrow.

Blood, behavior, walking behavior, jaw, mooses 100,000 years ago deep eye sockets high forehead, chins Europe cold meat 300,000 years short and stocky all the humans went through there because it was safe better strategic ability middle east spears drawings on the caves by chewing charcoal and spitting by building watercraft flint a harp.

Games, Fake Games

Fake Game: Slave Trade Tycoon

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Slave Trade Tycoon is a game that is similar to other “Tycoon” games like Roller Coaster Tycoon, Railroad Tycoon, and Marine Park Empire.

You can choose from many time periods to slave trade in, including “the past” (easy), “the present” (normal), and “the future” (hard).  The further in time you go, the harder it gets to keep your slave trade in business, due to new humanitarian laws and the rise of individual self-worth among developing nations.

The goal of this game is to try to make money by raising and selling slaves.  You can build many kinds of things that promote your slave trade business, making it easier to supply your customers (short-term profit) with slaves or put them to work on your own personal properties (long-term profit).

You can allocate which slaves work where, and they increase in sale value depending on conditions such as youth, strength, current health, will power (bad), stupidity (good), and how many different types of jobs they can do.

Another element of the game is keeping a balance in the morale of your slaves.  Being nice to your slaves is good, but you don’t want your slaves to think you are too nice of a guy, that would mean they’d walk all over you.  There are many ways to be a slave trade master — rule with an iron fist, a warm blanket, or both!

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Many different cultures/themes are available, along with their own specific goals, such as:

Egyptian – Making the pyramids.

American – Plantations

Germany – Slave Camp

Russia – Prostitution

Alien – Human slave camps

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Different problems that occur during the game that challenge your skills include:

Slave riots

Slave escape (Underground Railroads)

Civil Wars/Wars with other nations

Plagues/Diseases

Stories, Fairy Tales

The Mammoths In the Ocean

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Once upon a time, there lived a magnificent civilization under the sea.  While you might be thinking it is a society of merpeople or single fish, you are wrong.  This society was created by mammoths. Mammoths wearing scuba gear.

Everyday they would refill their oxygen tanks at the Oxygen Station.  They would comb their hair and eat pop-tarts for lunch, dinner, and sometimes breakfast.  They would eat water for breakfast.

So, anyway, humans evolved and started shitting on the ocean and dumping their Twinkie wrappers in the middle of the Pacific like assholes.

This soon created a Trash Island that became as big as the Pacific itself.  Eventually, the Insectoid Empire declared the Trash Island as their sovereignty and announced war against the humans.  After a long, arduous game of Monopoly, the humans lost and agreed to fly to the moon and remake their society there since no one gives a shit about that place.

The Insectoid Empire enjoyed a long and prosperous reign on land but they wanted more.  The Ocean Mammoth embassy on the Trash Island gave the Insectoid Empire an idea.  Why not take over the Ocean Mammoth civilization?

A surgical strike at the mammoth’s Oxygen Stations sealed the deal and soon enough the streets of the Ocean Mammoth civilization were filled with drowned mammoths.  Eventually large schools of barracudas and piranhas came and ate all of them and destroyed all of their inventions, losing all of their technology forever.

The Insectoid Empire relished this victory and soon became an imperialistic power taking over one planet after the next.  They were parasites after all.

Moral of the story:  Foreign dependence is bad.