Yup, definitely like an idle clicker game...

[Sanquin]

Don't get me wrong, I quite like this game. Put a good 60 hours in it now I think. But Planet Crafter is basically an idle clicker game combined with crafting/building survival. In the beginning it's all well enough. You unlock things at a decent pace. But the farther you get the longer it takes, and the more resources and crafting you need to do to keep a decent pace going. To the point where launching 5x rockets for each number barely makes a dent.

I just got into the creature stage. And honestly...I'm done. The only things left to unlock are 2~3 more things to make animal numbers go up a bit faster, and the final rocket to get off planet. I'm at 1.60 TTi. Getting to 5 is just...meh.

At least there's a set end to this clicker game, and the progress you see on the planet is really cool.

[Alshain]

There was never any doubt of that, it's definitely got idle clicker mechanics.
It's the differences between this and an idle game that makes it great.

1. Story/Ending, minimal but there.
2. The whole game takes place while you are playing the game.
3. No micro transactions.

But yeah, whenever someone asks what it's like I always say it's a cross between survival and idle game.

[Sanquin]

Originally posted by Alshain:

1. Story/Ending, minimal but there.

The interesting thing about the minimal story, is that it kinda reads like a post from the HFY subreddit. :P

Aliens met humans. Things seemed great, we even looked alike! But humans were still set in primitive ways and very expansionist, starting to take over everything. Aliens tried to flee and hide away, only delaying the inevitable.

And once again, I'm not saying I suddenly don't like the game. I had fun up until now. Definitely worth the price. But that last stretch... to 5 TTi...just not worth it to me. I'll probably do a new playthrough eventually though.

[Mordtziel]

Game definitely has issues post like...Lakes stage. You don't really feel like you're doing anything different. Just bigger numbers/forms of life. And that really starts setting in late insects stage. They could really stand to introduce something more exciting around the breathable atmosphere stage. Like breathable atmosphere is a great accomplishment in reality, but in the game, it's just a number on your oxygen consumption. Maybe they could give us all kinds of new furniture for outside to help make it feel more impactful and start to turn your bases into something more cozy than the bland indoor only science stuff and gigantic machines. Or even once we start introducing fish, we have to start performing a balancing act between the fauna or else one will consume the other leading to its own demise. Or having to introduce specific flora/fauna to specific regions, etc. Right now the stages are all just basically the same thing different shape and that feels bad.

[EleventhStar]

wait you are complaining it's too long for a clicker game? it's too short if anything.

you only go from 10^0 to 10^12 in this game.

[Mysticalmaid]

I find this game quite refreshingly different, i like that it can go slower or faster depending on your choices. I'd really like to see more games along this style.

[MadBone12]

I think I might be the only one who got to 5TTi too fast. I had barely unlocked mammals and next thing you know, game over. Honestly, I was hoping it would move slower. I didn't have any idle moments in this game at all, and was hoping the last few hours would slow down as I was just starting to use the portal generator and suddenly, I'm at the end of the game.

I did launch many rockets and built many machines, which was definitely the main factor. I don't get the complaints about the slow progress in a game where you control the progress speed.

[Mordtziel]

Originally posted by MadBone12:

I think I might be the only one who got to 5TTi too fast. I had barely unlocked mammals and next thing you know, game over. Honestly, I was hoping it would move slower. I didn't have any idle moments in this game at all, and was hoping the last few hours would slow down as I was just starting to use the portal generator and suddenly, I'm at the end of the game.

I did launch many rockets and built many machines, which was definitely the main factor. I don't get the complaints about the slow progress in a game where you control the progress speed.

People like to build like a dozen machines and rockets or less and think that's good enough. My latest playthrough is at 10% rate and I still feel like I'm flying through. I get through some phases without even interacting with the thing that the phase is about. It's actually so silly when you honestly try.

[failsafe]

I agree with OP. Game was fun before 1.3-1.5 TTi (in my case). Later on it was just finding ways to spend time. Last 1.5 TTi (from 3.5 to 5.0) was a chore... I ended doing stuff on my smartphone with game running in the background or watching netflix. So, the game was easily 2-3 hours too long. And yes, there is always an option to keep building more and more high tier structures to speed this up, but at the end of the day it is just tedious and boring.

[Mordtziel]

Honestly, I think the game moves way too fast through stages after Lakes. I'm over here at 10% rates and I'm over 30% of the way to breathable atmosphere without a single T2 Flower Spreader and only just threw down my first pair of T1 tree spreaders.

Though for you guys near the end of the game, I also understand that a big problem is a lack of things to do (beyond building more machines that have practically been built the same way since insects). But I don't think the game goes slow at all.

At this point, I feel like everything starting at Flora should probably move up a step, if not two, in terms of requirements to clear them. But really, I'd love to see the Terraformation Stages system itself be reworked to actually require x amount of the associated type of terraformation. Like the current system works sort of fine up until lakes (as long as we only consider pressure/heat), but it gets kinda silly when you can clear moss, flora, and trees without a single blade of grass to your name; clear insects without a single bug beyond the larvae on the ground, etc. Like given the numbers they have us doing right now, clearing Lakes is 50 MTi, Moss 200 MTi, Flora 700 MTi. Our index is currently split into 4 parts, so that'd be expecting us to do 50 kt of plants in Moss which sounds like a helluva lot, but is actually attainable if you actually use all your seeds. Which we currently don't even come close to scratching the surface of how many are thrown at us. Not to mention that we'll also pick up T2 algae generators and plant spreader rockets along the way. I think that's much better than looking up and going "what the hell do you mean the atmosphere is breathable? I haven't even touched plants since the vegetubes..." which is very much how the game would be playing out for me at normal rates.

[Padgey]

And this is the story of any game some people loving it some say it’s boring as long as you feel you got your moneys worth then it’s all good right? Looking at these comments it’s split 50/50 on if the game is too fast or slow paced if it’s good and fun or boring and tiresome

[failsafe]

Originally posted by Mordtziel:

Honestly, I think the game moves way too fast through stages after Lakes. I'm over here at 10% rates and I'm over 30% of the way to breathable atmosphere without a single T2 Flower Spreader and only just threw down my first pair of T1 tree spreaders.

Though for you guys near the end of the game, I also understand that a big problem is a lack of things to do (beyond building more machines that have practically been built the same way since insects). But I don't think the game goes slow at all.

At this point, I feel like everything starting at Flora should probably move up a step, if not two, in terms of requirements to clear them. But really, I'd love to see the Terraformation Stages system itself be reworked to actually require x amount of the associated type of terraformation. Like the current system works sort of fine up until lakes (as long as we only consider pressure/heat), but it gets kinda silly when you can clear moss, flora, and trees without a single blade of grass to your name; clear insects without a single bug beyond the larvae on the ground, etc. Like given the numbers they have us doing right now, clearing Lakes is 50 MTi, Moss 200 MTi, Flora 700 MTi. Our index is currently split into 4 parts, so that'd be expecting us to do 50 kt of plants in Moss which sounds like a helluva lot, but is actually attainable if you actually use all your seeds. Which we currently don't even come close to scratching the surface of how many are thrown at us. Not to mention that we'll also pick up T2 algae generators and plant spreader rockets along the way. I think that's much better than looking up and going "what the hell do you mean the atmosphere is breathable? I haven't even touched plants since the vegetubes..." which is very much how the game would be playing out for me at normal rates.

You have mammals at 1.25 TTi. And then nothing for a long time, and then end of the game at 5 TTi. First stages come quickly, last stage is just long without purpose. I've spent around 2 hours doing nothing, this includes placing more machines just to speed up waiting for end of the game. At some point I didnt even care when I have unlocked new butterfly of frog, because they are pretty useless. Funny thing is that I've ended placing lots of T4 heaters and T4 pressure generators, since building them was the easiest and fastest...

[Mordtziel]

You have mammals at 1.25 TTi. And then nothing for a long time, and then end of the game at 5 TTi. First stages come quickly, last stage is just long without purpose. I've spent around 2 hours doing nothing, this includes placing more machines just to speed up waiting for end of the game. At some point I didnt even care when I have unlocked new butterfly of frog, because they are pretty useless. Funny thing is that I've ended placing lots of T4 heaters and T4 pressure generators, since building them was the easiest and fastest...

I hit mammals last night. And yes, that stage of the game is severely lacking in more ways than one. To go through a few...
No matter the genetics applied, nothing changes about the individual mammal's multiplier. So it really doesn't matter what you make them from unless you're going for a very specific look.
There's no T2 of anything mammal related. Everything is just unlocked from the getgo. You have access to every species, color, pattern, bioluminescence, and size. The only things you have to go out of your way for are the variants and the loot specific traits.
The rocket is a total joke to launch if you've setup proper automation on the other stages. Rocket engines that every rocket needed, osmium rods which have been needed since insects, T4 mutagen that has been needed since amphibians, and now just 6 genetic traits? Excuse me while I go dump 300 bees into a grinder for traits. Given what's actually in the rocket, you'd expect it to unlock at the fish level and require fish eggs. What they probably should have done was like Animal Rocket Tiers and have each one affect its specific type instead of a generic catchall animals. Fish eggs for fish, frog eggs for amphibians, and maybe you have to send up completed mammals or a batch of unique traits instead of just 6 traits that can all be the same.
The mammal stage in general is just too easy to do anything at because we've got basically everything fully automated and can craft anything we need near instantly unlike pre-animal stages where we had to go and gather stuff constantly. Imagine if you needed to go and find the blueprints for every trait (or some part that the extractor needs) out of portal wrecks before you could get them from your items or something. Not to mention extracting is almost instant in comparison to the time it takes to create a butterfly, bee, or tree. Like it's not actually instant, but I'm not compelled to have a room of machines dedicated to it like I do for incubators.
And then you have the process of feeding animals. Which has also got to be some kind of joke. They can eat anything you can? Great, my 30 farms from the insect stage has already taken care of this need. They should need something specific that's a pain to acquire. Like something from the trade rocket...maybe they require croissants or something which is 18 wheat and 2 autocrafters. But no, I can just feed them the basic wheat or eggplants or anything. Imagine a food that increased their animals multiplier.
Hell and how about being able to throw them down anywhere just willy-nilly? This is another problem I have with a lot of the game. They should have synergy with other systems. Like imagine if each type of mammal wanted a specific environment or you'd incur a penalty to their multiplier (or a boost to make it feel better for the player). Like Species 1 requires a large amount of water, little trees in its area, couldn't care about grass , and wants lots of light; Species 2 requires a good amount of water and trees, but little grass and low light; Species 3 requires little water but lots of grass, trees, and decent lighting. And they all hate lava (I think the new species from the beta is probably a candidate for lava areas). But complaining about other synergies, beehives should receive a boost from flower spreaders as an example with a larger boost for more varieties in the area. Meanwhile your machines like drills would be a detriment to anything that generates flora/fauna so you'd be more inclined to set them up in caves/deserts.
Also why don't I have to like fence in the mammals? Maybe that should be the T1 design, a fenced in area where they grow up before they can be moved into a free roam T2 or something.

At a certain point the game just kinda feels like the team isn't thinking about consequences/interactions of their additions. Just a lot of "wouldn't this be cool to add" and it's only ever new stuff, not interactions nor thinking about current progression problems.

[failsafe]

The thing is that we have breathable air very quickly, we have green landscape, billions of insects, lots of fish but game informs us that we are like 20% towards terraforming goal. Planet is already terraformed. We have lots of life there. Really lots. How come this be 20% since next 80% changes nothing?

I've finished the game with ONE engineered mammal. ONE. I guess he will be very lonely on the planet once I left him there...

On the other hand I dont thinkt there is much to improve this. I mean adding additional chains, or making some chains more complex just to pretend that it is needed doesnt make sense. I guess game could easily change at 2-3 TTi with no harm done. Or maybe this could be a difficulty-related? Game really shines until we reach 1-1.5 TTi. Then it is just boring. There is no real reason in keeping boring stuff in game, since it is not about time we spend there, but about fun we get.

[Mordtziel]

I've finished the game with ONE engineered mammal. ONE. I guess he will be very lonely on the planet once I left him there...

On the other hand I dont thinkt there is much to improve this. I mean adding additional chains, or making some chains more complex just to pretend that it is needed doesnt make sense. I guess game could easily change at 2-3 TTi with no harm done. Or maybe this could be a difficulty-related? Game really shines until we reach 1-1.5 TTi. Then it is just boring. There is no real reason in keeping boring stuff in game, since it is not about time we spend there, but about fun we get.

I think the Terraformation Index needs to stop after Lakes. At least as far as a number is considered. It needs to be more of a checklist after that because the planet is definitely mostly terraformed at that point as plantlife now exists. It's just a matter of getting towards that breathable atmosphere for humans. So after Lakes it should be more of a checklist of things where we're forced to meet certain more specific criteria. Planet 10% covered in grass for example.

[Mordtziel]

but currently this is just a stat and not reflected ingame due to performance issues i would assume or devs jsut figuring out how to implement it.

Oh yea...if the devs actually filled out the planet with their unoptimized mess, I'm sure everything would look like the Paradise Temple and its <6 fps