Planet Alpha
Planet Alpha’s alien beauty fails to charm.
Planet Alpha opens with you, an elongated humanoid in a spacesuit, limping across a desert, eventually collapsing at the (surprisingly literal) mouth of a cave. One fade-to-black later and you’re waking up, fully healed and ready to jump, run, crouch and drag your way through the alien landscape. As well as that basic side-scrolling platformer toolset, you also have the ability to turn day to night and night to day. Rather than putting you forward or backwards in time, this is used to manipulate your environment. Plants are particularly susceptible to changes in light, so full sunlight makes golden fungus unfurl to create new platforms, or prompts clumps of foliage expand to offer hiding places.
But although it has the potential to be an interesting project, supported by a pleasant low-poly art style, Planet Alpha quickly reveals a lack of depth and mechanical polish which combine to make playing a real chore.
Moving through the world was not a fun experience, especially during stealth segments. For example, I found it hard to tell with any degree of precision whether an enemy’s laser would hit me while I was behind cover. That was because I couldn’t reliably get a sense of their line of sight or which parts of the terrain were shielding me. Some sections were thus brimming with trial-and- error deaths, or getting killed when I thought I was behind a rock.
Relatedly, it wasn’t always clear which plane an object was on. For example, I waited for a pause in a gigantic creature’s foot stomping so I could safely pass only to realize it was part of a background layer, and therefore I could ignore it completely.
Another recurring irritation was the sliding sections. You start to slide down a slope, then you either anticipate jumps or obstacles or you die. These change up the pacing, but they’re also where the hand of the developer is most obvious; if you die you go back to a checkpoint and start sliding again until you do it correctly. This flavor of tedium is not unique to Planet Alpha and the checkpointing is generous enough, but Planet Alpha also does nothing to invigorate what are essentially cutscenes with the ability to fail.
In terms of the art, there are some cool touches. The backgrounds are visually interesting, particularly early on, and there’s a nice moment involving a long-necked creature which seemed to be a nod to the original Jurassic Park movie.
Later levels feel less visually interesting, though. A dark cave had some pretty moments, but mostly induced a headache as I squinted at the patches of light on a largely black screen, while a lava section appeared to match its dull running and jumping with a one-note visual experience. But even when the backgrounds are pretty, the player’s space is often humdrum.
Middle of the road
Offering some variety are glowing orbs which transport you to dreamy, pocket universes populated with jumping puzzles. These are fine but uninteresting. In fact, the puzzles are generally fine, mostly unmemorable and occasionally frustrating, especially if they involve stealth.
The puzzles also don’t take the day-night conceit anywhere remarkable. During a chase sequence the moonlit fungus platforms are needed so you can cross a gap. I started the chase in daylight, saw the need for night, changed time, and was killed by a robot before the fungus could bloom. I respawned with the night in place and finished it easily—not an interesting resolution.
A counterpoint here is Playdead’s Inside. Regardless of whether you enjoy its tone, it uses visual and mechanical design to deliver a weird bleakly comic story, the puzzles are engaging and the animations elevate the character to a real presence. Planet Alpha struggles on all counts, coming off as loose instead of tight, vague instead of purposeful, and dull instead of compelling.
A dark cave had some pretty moments but mostly induced a headache