Planet Diver created by Fabraz, for PC and mobile devices, follows the story of a daredevil who wants to check the next bad-A activity off of her bucket list, that activity being planet diving with a wing suit. The game follows her and Buddy, her robot companion, as they dive through the vast expanses of a few distinct planets destroying and dodging obstacles and creatures. The game style takes on an old-timey yet futuristic theme, with the futuristic storyline of planet diving and the supplemental design features of catchy 1920s-1940s record-player background tunes as well as silent movie reminiscent dialogue cut scenes where the story of Planet Diver unfolds. It also holds a slightly pixelated look giving it an older feel, making it something that I could see in an old-school arcade.

Planet Diver is split into two game modes, Story and Arcade, where the Story plays through the main game and the Arcade allows replayability of several of the stages as is the same in many games with these game modes. Within the Story mode, Planet Diver, does a great job of acclimating the player into the gameplay. First off the player is allowed to read-up on different rules of the game or they can just jump right in as each of the first levels have an embedded tutorial within the dialogue between the daredevil and Buddy. Each of the first levels focus on a new game concept and how it works, allowing the player to learn by doing. Then as the player passes through the tutorial stages and dives deeper into the planet, the gameplay increases in difficulty with each stage holding a different objective for the player to complete else fail said stage. These objectives include destroying 3 or more specific creatures before reaching a certain depth, or maintaining a certain speed for the entirely of the level. If the player has difficulty completing a certain objective, after so many tries the game will offer a way to play through the level in an upgraded suit, allowing the player to be able to complete the objective with more ease. The downfall to using this method is that any star stuff, the game’s version of currency, which is collected within the level does not transfer to the player’s bank of star stuff and cannot be used in Planet Diver’s store to upgrade suits, buy new background music, or buy new mods for Buddy. Speaking of the suit upgrades a few of them are very recognizable and I love that they were included in the game. To end the player’s time on each of the planets the daredevil visits, there are boss battles that involve quick thinking in order to be successful.

Planet Diver is a solid game. The only improvement would be with the merge of the futuristic and old-timey theme. There were a few times throughout the gameplay where I felt the game theme could have been presented better, so it did not appear that the player was jumping back and forth between two themes. Other than that, Planet Diver is a quirky and fun game. As I played on the PC, I noticed that the simple mechanics of the game make it something I could see being a mobile app and guess what, it is. If you are looking for a game that is challenging enough to keep you interested, but light enough that you do not have to get too invested, plus the ability to take it with you anywhere, Planet Diver is definitely the game for you. To go back to the earlier mention of this game being in an arcade, Planet Diver is definitely a game that would keep me inserting more quarters when my time was up.

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