Dawn To Dusk

PLANET ALPHAs alien beauty fails to charm.

- Philippa Warr

Planet Alpha opens with you, an elongated humanoid in a spacesuit, limping across a desert, eventually collapsing at the (surprisingly literal) mouth of a cave. One fade-to-black later and you’re waking up, fully healed and ready to jump, run, crouch and drag your way through the alien landscape. As well as that basic side-scrolling platformer toolset, you also have the ability to turn day to night and night to day.

Rather than putting you forward or backwards in time, this is used to manipulate your environment. Plants are particularly susceptible to changes in light, so full sunlight makes golden fungus unfurl to create new platforms, or prompts clumps of foliage expand to offer hiding places.

But although it has the potential to be an interesting project, supported by a pleasant low-poly art style, Planet Alpha quickly reveals a lack of depth and mechanical polish which combine to make playing a real chore.