Developer: JIW-Games
Publisher: KISS ltd
Platforms: PC, Mac
Expected release date: TBC
Rising World – Preview
Rising World is an open-world sandbox game developed by the Germany-based java indie game developer JIW-Games. Similar to other open-world sandbox games, such as Minecraft, Rising World is all about randomly generated worlds which you can tear apart and rebuild from gathered materials. Everything you see can be changed, whether it is in single-player or multi-player modes. Rising World is an early version of Minecraft, albeit with far better graphics.
First things first, upon starting up the game you’ll notice that Rising World requires Java for the game to run. While many of us have a valid Java running on our computers, many players including myself, had some issues with launching the game. The game requires you to download a 64-bit version of Java while most browsers require a 32-bit. Additionally, you need to create a JIW-Games account at the start. This seems quite unnecessary, especially since you are playing the game via Steam. This is one of the main reasons for player to say ‘Nay’ to Rising World, although the game runs smoothly once you’ve passed these hurdles.
The game play like any other open-world sandbox game. There is a single-player mode where you can create different types of worlds for you to venture in. When creating a world you can choose which type of world you want: superflat, surreal or normal. You can also choose if you want to disable caves and vegetation or not. Additionally, you can choose which type of gamemode you’d like: survival, creative, stranded or adventure mode. The multiplayer mode has a few servers up and running. However there is not much info given about the servers except for the ping, name, IP and how many players a server can hold. The servers that are currently running can house 12 to 150 players.
Visually, Rising World tries to come across as realistic as possible. The vegetation has a variation of colors and the wind can rustle through the leafs. Animals that are walking about each have their own distinctive sound, as well as nature in general. A day and night cycle is embedded, as well as physics – a feature that applies to many of the objects in the game.
One of the major features of Rising World is that you can completely modify the world and anything can be ‘deconstructed’ into raw materials. At the start, you can only chop trees and chip at stones. Chopping wood seems like an endless task while gathering stones has a more visual way of showing you that you are indeed picking the stony mountains by showing the player cracks that grow bigger and bigger. While the wood does show you a visual effect, accompanied with a sound design, you’ll be chopping away until the tree falls down. You have no knowledge of when this is about to happen. A less realistic down-side I’ve noticed is that when you cease an action, you will need to start from the beginning, even though you’ve already hit the tree or stone a few times before.
Once you’ve gathered enough materials, you can start with crafting a workbench with which you can craft even more crafting stations. You will need these, not only to decorate your house or secret hide-out, but also to craft the materials needed for floors and walls. When it comes down to crafting items, it would make sense if you could create better items over time. However, in Rising World, the items you can craft from the start can range from shabby wooden doors to luxurious office chairs and couches. Personally, I don’t think this makes any sense at all. The construction system itself is quite large already with almost 200 materials available that can be placed all around the world.
As for the amount of content in the game, there is enough to do, ranging from building to exploring. Creative players will have plenty to do while adventurous players may need to wait a while longer for additional content to be added. Features that will come in the game soon will distinct the game slightly from Minecraft, especially when they are adding baking and cooking in the game. Then again, other features such as adding animals and monsters in the game, does scream Minecraft some more.
While Rising World is in Early Access, it still shows many graphical glitches and bugs. The most common ones you will come across are animals falling through the floor and trees that are defying gravity. While these are not major bugs, they are still noticeable.
Conclusion
Rising World can be looked at as another version of Minecraft, albeit with far better graphics but the game is far from being finished. A creative player will be able to spend hours and hours, while a more adventurous player will need to wait until they implement monsters and the likes. The game is quite decent for being in alpha and it does have potential but we’ll need to wait and see how the game develops over time.
Rising World - Preview,
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