

Everything in Journey to the Savage Planet is interesting to look at and feels right for the world. In terms of creative design, Typhoon has done a marvelous job. It’s all believable in the sense that it works within the confines of this world. Binding bile - yep, you’re flinging poop - allows you to stick creatures in place while you do… whatever you need to do with creatures stuck in place. Some plants can be harvested to create bombs and others have acid properties that allow you to melt creatures or resin encrusting mineral veins. Seed sacks hanging from trees and cave ceilings can be burst to retrieve grapple seeds that allow you to place your own grapple points in the world. Of course, the planet ARY-26 also provides you with some equipment as well.


The game quips: “It’s a superfood! Like an ACTUAL superfood, not, like, chia seeds sprinkled onto a blade of grass.” I love reading the Kindex entries… While most abilities must be unlocked throughout the game, punting a Pufferbird off a cliff as you run by is unlocked from the beginning. Discovering orange pustules pockmarking ARY-26 allows you to - what else? - shove them in your mouth to level up your health and stamina. And upgrading them throughout your time with the game will open it up even further. ARY-26 really opens up as you unlock each of the traversal abilities. In Journey to the Savage Planet, movement across the environments with your jetpack, grapple hook, or sliding is fluid and fun. Platforming is one of those gameplay elements that can go south quite quickly if not done well. Surprising to me, another aspect of gameplay that I enjoyed was the platforming. Almost every entry in your Kindex will at least make you smirk. I found that interactions with the creatures on ARY-26 were a few of the most enjoyable times for me. But play around a bit and you may uncover a useful secret about it. For instance: discovering a quivering, green, gelatinous cube is entertaining at first as you smack it across the environment. Nearly everything in Journey to the Savage Planet has a puzzle element to it. It’s the precious and scarce Alien Alloys that will prove a bit more challenging to collect. Murdering the various species of Pufferbird (which loves you) will yield Carbon, while killing an iteration of Baboushka will produce Silicon. Scanning often identifies valuable (or at least hilarious) information about the item being scanned. You’ll be running around ARY-26 scanning anything and everything while cataloguing using your Kindex. Most of the time, however, you won’t be dying. The few times I did find myself brutalized by ARY-26’s denizens, I often got a bit of a chuckle when I went back to locate my corpse. Dying is not frustrating as there isn’t much in the way of a penalty as long as you can reach your supplies. Of course, you’ll have to get back out there to find (and bury) your body and retrieve the materials you dropped. Want more equipment? You’ll have to earn it by researching the flora and fauna of ARY-26 and reporting back! Should the planet’s flora and fauna succeed in murdering you, your body will be recreated back in your ship. Kindred Aerospace is proud of being the 4th Best Interstellar Space Exploration Company and, as such, provided you with little more than a 3D printer in the way of supplies. Martin Tweed, CEO of Kindred Aerospace THE GAMEPLAY It will be up to you to uncover your new planet’s secrets and report back to the (hilarious) CEO of Kindred: Martin Tweed. You’ll quickly discover that your new planet doesn’t appear to be as devoid of intelligent life as was believed. Launched from a dying Earth onto the planet ARY-26, your objective is to explore, catalog, and report back your discoveries. Kindred Aerospace - the 4th Best Interstellar Space Exploration Company - is dedicated to finding a new planet for humanity to inhabit. You play as one of many recruits in the Kindred Aerospace Pioneer Program.
