Lifeless Planet - Indie Seen

There is something to be said of exploration in video games these days. It often comes with blinking arrows, and leaves little to the imagination. Not so in {Lifeless Planet} - David Board's (Stage 2) take on the action-adventure genre.

We sampled an early alpha build of the game ahead of its Steam Early access beta release. The latter comes with a bunch of improvements, but for the sake of an early impression piece the alpha will suffice.

We're dropped off on an unknown planet (apparently crash landing), exploration and survival is our mission, and there is little hand holding at first. There's a mystery brewing on the surface of this seemingly barren and lifeless celestial body that was supposed to be teeming with life. The controls are rudimentary and a little floaty, something that will likely be tweaked, but to be honest they also lend the indie title a bit of character. This isn't your average AAA release where an animator spent a year perfecting the movements of the protagonist in his space suit.

Soon our astronaut discovers and abandoned Soviet era town. What's the story here? The atmosphere is perfectly tuned as the buildings tell a story of their own. It feels haunted and surely enough you run into a mysterious Russian girl who holds the key to the mystery. Apparently she's able to survive this hostile place, and we're forced to follow in her footsteps for better or worse.

There's a haunting beauty to the imagery of {Lifeless Planet}. It's enough to motivate exploration on its own, but the fascinating mixture of exploring the past and something unknown certainly makes it all the more enticing. This game is all about exploration, and narrative told through the environments, what you see and process on your own. There are puzzles to solve, a limited use jetpack, and a robotic arm to manoeuvre. But from what we played the game is light on mechanics and repetitive actions.

A lot of progress has been made on the technical side of the game since the alpha, and we expect there to be further improvements as the game edges towards full release. The environments may sometimes border on the simplistic from a technical perspective, but there's something about the imagery that implores you to stop and quietly take in the scenery. Rather than a game with an element of exploration this feels more like exploration delivered in the shape of a game.

The game promises 20 expansive environments to explore and a storyline that will provides us with answers to the questions posed as we take our first few steps on the alien planet. We're excited to see where this one ends up, not just because the subject matter appeals to us, but also because the approach to narrative and game design shows the kind of traits we normally look for in an indie title. Something with a narrow focus done well.

{Lifeless Planet} recently appeared on Steam Early Access in beta form (levels 1-6 of 20 in total), costs £9.99 and there's currently no clear word on when the final version might arrive.