Wrapping Up 2015, Setting Up 2016 Plan & Kickstarter Date

Today's blog post is full of information. With the early revealed, many people have heard about Planet Nomads for the first time and joined our community - welcome!

We'd like to take this opportunity to wrap up 2015 and sum up what we've accomplished in Planet Nomads development so far. We'd also like to confirm that Planet Nomads is going on Kickstarter in January 2016. Hopefully this blog post will also answer the questions that have been popping out left and right recently, and which we are having harder and harder time addressing individually.

Planet Nomads - What, When and Where

Planet Nomads is about building useful things that help you survive on procedurally generated planets. Players begin on a single planet (with multiple biomes) and build their way towards a spaceship and then it's straight to new planet discoveries. More on different planet types in future posts.

This is a premium priced game with one purchase for life. The exact price is yet to be decided. There will be no freemium mechanics, as we want gameplay-driven game design and frankly want to take a rest from thinking in F2P terms.

Planet Nomads goes to Steam EA in January 2017, while KS backers will get a very early peak under the hood in summer 2016, with updates based on their feedback.

Windows and MAC OS will be supported right away (KS Early Alpha), but we also plan to have a look at Linux before Steam release, and are open to consoles later down the road.

Lots of people have asked about modding, multiplayer, space flight and other features. We are very interested in these too, but they take time and resources. In other words it depends on how strong the Kickstarter campaign goes.

We realize you hunger for a detailed info, and we'll be sharing more information in 2016, but many features are long-term goals that we can only decide after seeing the results of our Kickstarter campaign.

The game will get better the bigger its audience gets. Planet Nomads is growing everyday now and it is mainly thanks to you, through channels like Reddit, gaming forums and Indie DB. Reaching TOP 100 at Indie of the Year Awards helped with visibility a lot.

Speaking of which, voting is currently in its second (and final) round. How high can we get? Two clicks to Vote for Planet Nomads at Indie DB 2015 Indie of the Year.

UPDATE: You have voted Planet Nomads TOP5 Best Upcoming Indie 2016! We've been blown away by the results. This is amazing, and we are incredibly grateful for your support. We promise to deliver with Planet Nomads.

Many details can be found in past Planet Nomads dev blog posts

Also check out our MEDIA page, which clearly show how Planet Nomads evolves.

As far as raw development goes we have been focusing on these three major areas:

1) Building - The results can be seen in the Editor, and there are a few major dev blog posts on the mechanics of building:
Building a Mobile Home - Mining, Crafting & Power Distribution Explained - Optimized Editor with New Block Types
2) Creating biomes - Interview with the Art Director & creating Sandy, our own procedural terrain engine
3) Physics - So far we've covered Vehicle Physics (wheels and suspension) and have moved to physics of individual blocks used in a structure.

We have successfully concluded the prototyping phase and are now putting everything into one neat package, optimizing along the way, developing more refined physics and turning game design ideas into game mechanics.

What Can You Expect in 2016

The gaming community showed incredibly positive response to the trailer and energized us to work harder than ever in the upcoming months. After we take the much needed rest during Christmas break, we'll get back to development and share every step of the way with you.

2016 will be all about uncovering more of Planet Nomads gameplay, populating its world(s), showing examples of dynamic weather and explaining survival and exploration mechanics in great detail. We realize you have high hopes for Planet Nomads and we promise to deliver.

Starting later this week, we'll be continuously updating our FAQ section as we collect your feedback and stumble open new questions.