Kickstarter Shout-out: TerraTech

A few months ago, I helped back an interesting Wii U Kickstarter game called Hex Heroes. Hex Heroes is a real-time strategy game with emphasis on playing cooperatively with friends. This might seem like nothing special, but I contributed to a Kickstarter of a game genre that I don’t normally play. I then decided to see if there were any other Kickstarter projects going on that had genres that I don’t normally care about. That is how I found about TerraTech. Let’s build our own vehicles, mine for some resources, get into some vehicular combat, and check out TerraTech.

TerraTech is a game where you play as an off-world prospector. You must go to other planets and gather resources to bring back to earth, since earth’s resources are almost gone. The game has elements of customizable vehicle combat, resource gathering, and physics! When you start up the game, you set up your headquarters and then venture off to find resources. Each faction that you will encounter in the game will have separate parts that you can obtain from the battles you throw yourself into. A fun little element is that if you are damaged in battle, you can use the pieces of other vehicles to repair yourself with. So far, the Kickstarter has shown off three different factions from the construction/transport-heavy GeoCorp, to the fast/scouting-oriented Venture. Outside of combat, the opponents you encounter might give you different challenges to complete, like being able to fly a certain distance, or race through a certain number of checkpoints. The Kickstarter also has stretch goals that include online multiplayer and player-created content. This game easily has a lot of hours to offer you if you decide to back it.

As for the graphics, they look good! I like the art style, and it reminds me of getting those Micro Machine sets that are based on military vehicles of the past. And for obvious reasons, the whole building mechanic also reminds me of those weird LEGO rip-off series you see that have a majority of the pieces in already premade shapes so it’s easier to make what you’ve got in the box. Usually, I like to talk about the music, but I didn’t see the name of a composer for the game or hear any original music for the game. It’s kind of odd since TerraTech will probably need some music to keep you interested in the game.

So, any concerns or some comments? Well, yes. The Kickstarter page has a download where you can play the alpha version of the game that is shown on their page, and I got to play a few minutes of it. One thing that I didn’t care for are the physics used in racers, where you play as those remote-control RC cars. I never cared for these kinds of racers because the controls felt floaty and not as tight as they should have been. I mean, that is probably just personal taste. I bet the newer builds of the game have better controls, but I thought I would mention it. I also think, in a weird way, this game would work better as a real-time-strategy game. Maybe it’s because I mention the controls, but I think having a RTS design would work better. I comment on this idea because of the gimmick in the game, where you can lead a group of other vehicles to help battle and gather resources alongside you. I bet they could have made it into a strategy game and could let the player get into the battle personally, like how Kingdom Under Fire II is doing it.

Whether they take my comments in consideration for a sequel or not, I am interested to see how TerraTech’s overall design will turn out. Even though I am not a fan of the controls, I did have fun playing the alpha build of the game. So far, they are a little over £18K of its £35K funding goal. Like I stated above, the two stretch goals include an online multiplayer mode and a user-made content mode. This honestly looks like a fun game, and the four guys behind it seem to have had a lot of fun making it, and showing it off to people. We will have to see how TerraTech turns out and I wish the developer, Payload Studios good luck!