Planet Alpha

Putting your world in a spin

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If you squashed No Man’s Sky down onto a 2D plane then you’d get something akin to this new side-scrolling planetary explorathon from Team17. But don’t think this is just an excuse to indulge your right-brained inner voice, as there’s plenty of puzzling and shooting to be done between bouts of wonderment.

The fact your heroic space explorer is so tiny on screen – he’s regularly dwarfed by towering rock formations, flying whales, and windswept vistas – sells the scale of Planet Alpha’s beautiful world. It also makes you feel alone and vulnerable amid the craziness of this vibrant alien setting.

Running from left to right, the game riffs on many classic side-scrollers of the past, from the recently PlayStation 4 remake of Shadow Of The Beast to aging 16-bit classic Another World.Developer Adrian Lazar was playing the latter on his iPad the moment he decided to create Planet Alpha back in 2013.