Shane Press (The Draconic Author) is a writer hoping to publish his first novel. Here you may find a glimpse of what he's working on, including conceptual artwork and chapter previews. There will likely end up being some form of Video Game reviews and such as well. If you like high fantasy novels, dragons, tales of heroics, and perhaps some amateur video game reviewing, you may find this to your liking.
Hello, readers! I hope you're feeling well and are already making headway on whatever resolutions or goals or plans you have made for this brand new year. As a newly married man, I have some things I hope to accomplish this year, namely finding a house to make a home and get out of the cramped apartment I share with my wife. I also plan to continue making progress with my novel, as well as work on this blog! With a great year ahead for movies, t.v., and video games, I should have plenty to write about when not writing my book! With some luck, this year will be a good one for my writing career, and I hope it brings opportunities to you, my readers, as well. I also have a few posts still in the works to share soon. If anyone has anything they would like to me to review or read or watch, please leave a comment! I would love to broaden my horizons and talk about things I wouldn't normally expose myself to. Best wishes for the new year!
Happy New Year Everyone! Starting off with a review of two games I got after Christmas, Astroneer and Project Genom, both in their Alpha stages and both fun as they are so far.
Astroneer: Space Minecraft without the blocks
Astroneer is a survival-lite planetary exploration game. So far, the premise is you are an astronaut who is sent down to a vibrantly colored world to explore the planet, expand your base of operations, exploit the resources around you, and exterminate the threats that you can. "But Shane, this isn't like Masters of Orion or Sins of a Solar Empire, right?" Right! This is not a classic 4X strategy game, and (so far) there are no hostile aliens roaming around coming to kill you. After landing, you are left with your capsule (called a habitat) and your own ingenuity to survive the new world. Your astroneer (Astro-pioneer?) is equipped with a backpack that serves as your most basic battery and oxygen supply. These two resources are key to getting anything done, as you expend oxygen by moving around away from things you can tether to like your base. Tethering is automatic with proximity and allows for refilling oxygen as well as power if your base has one of many types of generators running. Away from tethers, you can find supplies of raw oxygen and power buried or embedded in the various minable surfaces of the planet (meaning the entire planet).
Let me take a moment to explain how the game plays. The only other thing your astroneer starts with is a multi-tool which doubles as both a vacuum mining device, sucking up both land and resources, and an extruder, spewing out 'land' to build bridges and walls, and also fill in holes and smooth out the terrain. Doing so uses power, which must be managed as your backpack recharges slowly.
Now, the game has many resources for you to collect in order to improve your situation. Very quickly, you will find the first two which are Compound and Resin, which will help you build the beginnings of your base, which is usually a Research system and a Smelter. The first turns Research pods you find into either new tech to build or a random resource, while the smelter allows you to refine certain materials into metals needed for construction of more advanced tech, like vehicles, generators, and additional base systems. The first you will end up building is likely a tiny solar dish and a wind turbine to power your backpack, and then your base.
From the ten hours I've put into it (the first 5 all in one sitting) I've managed to build a giant segmented truck covered in storage containers and power plants that allows me to go on huge mining trips and collect as much as possible. I also have a lunar lander style vehicle that I can use to hop from one area to another, though I have not explored the possibilities with the lander because I don't have enough hydrazine to fuel it.
So instead I take my solar- and wind-powered truck across the surface and down into caves to get hopelessly stuck and then have to tunnel my way back out.
The developers have created an interesting feature where the terrain is all voxels and polygons, and when you use your tool, you can bore straight through any surface you come across. This allows your to make tunnels through mountains, or if you find yourself stuck in a pit, to make a ramp to get where you want to go. You can also build up the terrain to make bridges over chasms, or up to areas that are currently inaccessible. I have not done much building, and have concentrated on digging in my current playthrough. But digging can get dangerous! You never know if you'll dig into a huge void and suddenly have to change direction to avoid falling to your death!
Speaking of death, I did mention this is a survival game, correct? Well, death in this game is annoying, as anything you were carrying when you died is lost and left at your corpse, while your 'respawn' back at base. You get to keep any generators stuck to the sides of your backpack (which has a limit of 2) but if you just hit a jackpot of titanium, or had exited a vehicle, you have to hoof it back to recover whatever you lost. The game kindly leaves a marker to help you find your corpse, though, as well as vehicles, bases, or beacons you leave near points of interest.
Beyond that, the game offers multiplayer for cooperative exploration. My truck currently has three seats, but I lack any friends to ride with, currently. The game is addictively fun, though, so I hope to attract some fellow astroneers when the game gets further into development. I'll make updates about any features I find especially noteworthy. As it is, the game is fun and provides constant reasons to play just 5 more minutes with the promise of achieving some goal or finding that one mineral deposit you needed to finish building your giant drilling rig! It is currently available on Steam Early Access and is totally worth the $19.99 USD. If you pick it up, I'm CDR Shiff D on Steam. Come play with me!
Project Genom: A Russian Sci-Fi MMO highlighting customization and crafting
You wake from cryosleep, trapped your stasis pod. In a panic, you fumble for the emergency release and feel relieved as the hiss of the hydraulics releasing fills your ears. You push up the lid, still shivering from the cryo-stasis gel, and step out into a dimly lit hall in nothing but the boxers they froze you in. You immediately realize something isn't right. Electrical wires snap and spark above you. Parts of the ceiling struts have crashed into a neighboring pod. Numerous other pods sit empty, but a trail of blood leads you to one of your former cohorts. He lies slumped against a wall, his hands covered in luminescent blue goo, a strange red shrimp-like creature at his feet. The puddle of red upon which he sits indicates he at least killed his killer. You thank him without words, else the creature may have claimed you as well. Looking around, you find some pants you recognize as basic security leggings. The tough fabric will keep your legs warm, and hopefully, repel the claws of any more critters that may be around.
Your attention is suddenly drawn to a camera fixated above the door to your cryo-storage vault. "Hey! You're alive! We had to seal the vault when the Diggers broke in, and then you all started thawing! Some managed to escape but you are the only one left that isn't still a block of ice. There should be a laser cutter in a box nearby. Use it to get out! You're lucky this door isn't the main bulkhead. Cut the locking clamps and you should be free. But be careful, the diggers are everywhere! If you make it to the elevator, I can turn them on to get you out. Good luck!"
The snap of the electrical connection being cut makes this one way call a short one. You search for the laser cutter and tune it to sever the clamps, and after a few moments, you slice through the steel and the door automatically opens. Stepping cautiously into the waiting chamber, you see all manner of scientific equipment scattered around. Vials of strange liquid, barrels leaking other fluids, hypo-injectors, surgical equipment, and you realize that in the panic of the last few moments, you don't remember why you were in that cryo-pod. It matters little when you see the red carapace of a Digger crawl around a corner and stop. It looks at you as you level your weapon, and then emits a screech, answered by the clatter of a dozen more bug-legs. You unload your charges at the bugs, and the last falls dead at your feet a minute later as it tried to lunge for you. Shaken by the encounter you grab as many extra power packs as you find in the crate and stuff the into the waist strap of your leggings, and continue on.
Project Genom Trailer (Note: Some features not yet implemented)
This is your introduction to Project Genom. Feels like Fallout 4, right? Well, that's where the similarities end, as you work your way through to the Ark, the remains of a colony ship sent to a far off world called Avalon. As you poke around and get your bearings in this game which lacks a clear path at first, considering it's Pre-Alpha in development. You eventually catch wind of what's been going on, and that your rude awakening is the result of these Diggers chewing their way into your cryo-unit and waking you all up before the colony was ready for you. Exploration will reveal a series of scavenger hunt styled quests which will earn you some context as well as some starting equipment, though make sure you explored enough in the tutorial to find a better starting gun. Eventually, you leave the colony to explore the planet and the game quickly becomes your normal questing and killing and searching MMO style of gameplay.
Where PG sets itself apart is the systems in place for advancing your character, only some of which are active. The main one is how you advance your skills. So far, the only two sets of skills I've noticed online are the armor and weapon skills, with the weapon skills limited to using pistols and automatic rifles. The game has 6 classes of armor (Only three are available currently: Tactical, Saboteur/Commando, and Assault) and 6 classes of weapons (Pistols, Shotguns, Sniper Rifles, Automatic Rifles, Blades, and Glaives). So far, advancing these skills involves using the associated weapon or armor, which involves either killing appropriate level enemies or getting him by them. Each subsection of skill has various bonuses that can be unlocked like extra ammo, damage, critical hit chance, or special actions like hitting your enemy with the butt of the rifle. Some of these things have not been implemented yet, such as mech suits, flying wing-gliders, pets and placeables like turrets and shield, and once you choose to unlock a skill or new tier of item level, you can not (as of yet) undo you choices or redistribute them. Whether this will carry over to the final product is as of yet undetermined, and with none of the other advancement systems unlocked as of yet, we will have to see where this all ends up. So far, though, it's fun to run around killing bugs and realizing you have a bunch of points to spend unlocking new tiers of gear. I did not know what I was doing at first, however, so now I have points spent in things I'd rather not use. But such is the life of a Pre-Alpha game tester.
Project Genom is also available on Steam Early Access for $13.99 USD, currently 30% off (Normally $19.99). You can also buy some DLC packs to help further fund the game which will provide you with some bonus stuff once the game systems come online. They are slightly less exclusive versions of crowdfunding packages they offered several months ago (I can't find the specifics currently). Are they worth it? Not presently, since you won't get anything out of them. Is the $13.99 worth it? So far, yes. It's fun and has interesting features and could be quite entertaining if the team can accomplish the goals they have set for it. Right now, it's an unfinished game with enough polish and content to keep you entertained, and with enough options that starting over once you hit the content wall is worthwhile. I will definitely keep people posted on any interesting developments. If you want to check out their website, click here!
