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In December, Jason was interviewed by Adam Rehberg of Adam’s Apple Games. Now, we’re pleased to have Adam as a guest blogger to share the inspiration behind Planet Unknown.
In Planet Unknown, Earth is running out of resources so you and up to 5 other players must develop the next planet to support the future of humanity. Thankfully as you build our new homeworlds, you have access to a giant rotating space station to drop giant resource tiles. Draft your tiles wisely and compete with the other planeteers to secure the fate of mankind. If you haven’t played, now is your chance! Planet Unknown is available for free during the month of February on Sovranti. You can even join Adam for a Planet Unknown game night on February 16 at 6pm CT.
With that, we welcome Adam Rehberg to the developer’s blog!
Greetings Planeteers! That’s my salutation for supporters of my game, Planet Unknown. This is a game I first conceived and initially tested in 2015 and developed over the last five years, but I didn’t have to go it alone. In the end, I’m proud to have 4,156 backers (our Planeteers) on Kickstarter who pledged $248,486 to bring this game to life.
Planet Unknown was initially inspired by Starcraft, Tetris, and Seven Wonders. Throughout its development and testing, the game has maintained asymmetric factions, polyomino tiles but the very first prototype had dice and resources. The first playtest in 2015 was quickly met with a glowing response from 6 players even though the game took 2 hours, there was a messy spread of tiles in the center of the table, and that players were relying on a die roll to gain resources.
Many things morphed over the course of a game’s design life but I want to highlight the pivotal moments for Planet Unknown.
The first major breakthrough was the creation of a central rotating space station. At first, it may seem like a ridiculous component in a game, but this unlocked the ability to play simultaneously. This is a fresh introduction in the context of a complex polyomino tile game.
The second major breakthrough was adding two tile types per polyomino tile. This reduced the feeling of randomness when a particular tile type was completely buried.
The third breakthrough was removing resources from physical tokens and transitioning them to a player board cleaning up the table and allowing players to focus on tile placement and not resource exchange.
The fourth and final breakthrough came from adding components and mechanics that deliver a complex puzzle to solve that evolves as you play in the form of rovers, lifepods, and meteors.
Now we’re at the finish line with the physical game board and pieces in their second round of sampling from the manufacturer, with delivery to our backers and retailers scheduled for mid-June. You can follow along with future updates on the game’s development on my Kickstarter.
Right now, you can play Planet Unknown on Sovranti and another Adam’s Apple Games game, Truck Off. It’s exciting to see the game live on Sovranti’s platform and some benefits to playing in this environment include multiplayer and cross-platform connectivity and rules enforcement (a game changer!).
About Adam Rehberg
Adam is a Gamer enthusiast from Minneapolis, owner of Adam's Apple Games, and creator of Planet Unknown, Thrive, Swordcrafters, Truck Off, and Brewin' USA. He is a full-time packaging engineer following his dream to create amazing board games and push boundaries. Follow Adam’s Apple Games on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook.
Planet Unknown Solo Mode Contest
Sovranti presents the Planet Unknown - Solo Mode Contests!! Each week, in February, we have a different challenge featuring 1 of the 117 Asymmetric Planets and Corporations combinations. Weekly winners are announced with prizes for top score, runner up and a random drawing for everyone else who posts.
Check out the Planet Unknown page for more details!
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