TerraTech Preview
Everyone loves Lego - the power of imagination in the form of little plastic bricks. That’s what I thought of when I saw the video showing the basics of TerraTech: The ability to use my imagination to create grandly designed machines of war.
The code starts off warning that this is unfinished and not to bank too much on it, but I hope they’re just being modest. Sure there’s no story mode yet, but the basics are all here. You can do a checkpoint race, build a flying machine or play a normal game. So I decided to tackle them in order.
Once my machine was built - with limited parts at first - the control system took a while to get used to. Having to protect your cockpit while destroying your enemy’s one is something you might not do well at first, not helped by a camera that doesn’t turn as your vehicle does. It also doesn’t zoom, meaning that you need to build from the bottom layer up, otherwise you will have trouble getting exact placement. After you destroy the first enemy, you have to use his parts to rebuild and improve your vehicle, with more wheels, armour and weaponry. You then go on to do it to any others.
Drills or ballistics that hit trees or rocks will cause blocks of resources (wood, metals, etc) to pop out of them which in the finished game will be required to fulfil objectives. Right now, they just get in the way because you can’t interact with them until you kill the guy with the hover platform, which gathers resources onto it.
On to building a rocket - this is a challenge and my best result with several different configurations was 20 meters. This is terrible, as there are the Top 3 constantly on the top right, and the lowest is 100 meters. It’s still fun trying to balance a vehicle well enough that it doesn’t flip and has enough fuel. There are boosters, giant boosters, wings and wheels, as well as plenty of blocks to make almost any design you want. It’s a fun addition I hope makes it to the final game in some manner.
Checkpoint race gives you more parts than the rocket building, including some of the more ‘industrial’ sized yellow blocks; and giant wheels. However, the course you’re given has small parts, so a big vehicle will get stuck. There are also jet engines and fuel tanks, so you can practice your flying machine antics - or just make a jet car like I did. Again, it has the Top 3 in the corner, the slowest of which is just over a minute. I managed 1 minute 14 seconds.
The graphics in TerraTech are better than Minecraft, despite being all blocks, but given the modular nature of everything there is only so much they can do. Also, the inability to zoom means they don’t have to be extremely detailed. The exoplanets the levels take place on are well designed with plenty of hills, trees and rocks. As for the sound design, in the demo code there isn’t any, not even a simple ‘blip’ of a bullet being fired - complete silence.
It’s a very interesting idea, and I would definitely like to see the Kickstarter succeed. The idea is fun, the execution is very good - so long as they get zooming implemented. You can download the demo here: http://www.indiedb.com/games/terratech/downloads/terratech-kickstarter-demo
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