Subnautica

[Dweller_Benthos]

Another open-ocean survival game, sorta like Stranded Deep, but in this case, there are very few (only one so far) islands. Everything is done underwater. The premise of the game is that in some future time, Earth is sending out colony ships to terraform other planets. You are on such a ship when it crashes (or is caused to crash?) on this ocean world.

First off, you have to survive, you start out in a small damaged escape pod where you have some storage, and a fabricator much like the ones in Star Trek that you can, well, fabricate stuff in. Think a fancy 3D printer. You need the materials to feed into it though, so you have to go out in the water to get what you need. Some are mineral based like titanium and quartz, others are gathered from the local wildlife and plants, mostly used for food. Some of the animals are dangerous, some may seek you out and attack you, others will only attack if you bother them. Others just ignore you.

Since it's still early access, there are only a few things to do so far, like build a submarine to replace your cramped escape pod, and make a smaller sub that you can take to extreme depths to explore the ocean and find what you need to eventually build a base (coming in future updates) and I presume to eventually complete your mission and terraform the world to make it more livable to non-aquatic organisms like humans.

The graphics are quite nice, I think it uses the Dunia engine, and of course, since it's early access, there are still bugs and not much content yet, but another game to keep an eye on if it sounds interesting to you. Right now, it's only $20 so that's a good deal even if you just let it sit until it's a more fleshed-out game. I remember Kerbal Space Program and Space Engineers were both pretty slim in the content to begin with and now they are quite extensive games. If the survival aspect turns you off though, then this is probably not the game for you.

[Art Blade]

it does. :-D

However, thanks for finding and sharing :)

+1 :-X ^-^

[Dweller_Benthos]

Yeah, one of the complaints in the forums for the game are that you get hungry and thirsty too quickly and the food you find doesn't fill you up enough. I tend to agree with that, as you spend probably the first 10 minutes finding food so you don't starve. Then after that probably every half hour of time you spend at least ten minutes on food gathering. It seems the newest developer updates have lessened this a little, plus make finding sub building resources a bit easier to find to start off with.

[Binnatics]

Early access seems to be the new trend in game world. We keep hearing of games launching early access and have players stumble around in an unfinished, buggy gameworld hoping for interesting feedback of users.
Maybe that's a result of Ubi's horrible customer care? Let's just be open that we DON'T deliver a proper game, and that we still WANT your money before you get to enjoy our product. Whether you will have any joy in the future is NOT our problem ::)

[PZ]

I think that about sums it up nicely 

[Dweller_Benthos]

I don't know, of the early access games I've tried (Minecraft, Kerbal Space Program, Space Engineers) that have been in development for a while, have become very full games that are fairly bug free. I now have Stranded Deep and Subnautica in the pipe in active development with smaller, more dedicated teams that maybe don't have to answer to the bean counters and get the game out in time for the holiday rush. It seems the feedback you get from a bug report actually means something, as in a lot of cases, you're talking to the person(s) actually writing the code, not some QA department hack who doesn't care about the game.

Of course, if you get into an early access game you expect some bugs, but buying a full release game it seems you get bugs anyway, plus the early access is usually much less expensive, so there is an upside. Big publishers want you to pre-order early (get your money) and you have to wait, where with early access you pay a lot less, get to preview the game in the meantime, and see new features as they come out. Now a game like Far Cry (any version) probably wouldn't w@&k well as early access as there's a definite story to the game, so previewing that as it was developed wouldn't be much fun, so there are differences and I guess it depends on the game and the person playing it.

[Art Blade]

*nods head* sounds about right  :)

[Binnatics]

I think you are right as well, D_B. I was a bit fed up with DayZ being way too buggy, and it takes so long to actually get it in full shape. But this is definitely a way of publishing that wins popularity. And in fact it's a good thing because it makes it possible for relatively small studios to develop a new and original game. We should sure keep an eye out for any of these early release alpha games. They CAN be worth it ;)

[Dweller_Benthos]

Yeah, that's mostly what I do, just let it simmer, come back now and then when there's an update and see how it's going, then let it sit a bit more. These are mostly survival games that are open-ended so they fit well with this sort of distribution model. I can't imagine a story-heavy game like Far Cry (insert version number here) getting released this way, unless it was just the game world to begin with, then the story was added later. It wouldn't really fit to have the first couple missions in Far Cry be available, then nothing new to do for a couple months as they w@&k on the next few.

[Art Blade]

indeed. The model also suits racing games, see Assetto Corsa.