If I were to crash land on a strange and dangerous planet, my first objective would be food, water, and shelter. I’d need to make weapons in order to fight off the creatures that inhabited the planet, and I’d need to eventually find a way to get off the planet.

I think it’s a pretty solid plan, however Whalebox Studios has a different idea for how to survive this dangerous planet. Build a Giant Robot and kick the giant monsters ass. This is the general premise of the story of Goliath. In order to survive you’ll need to build yourself a base, grab materials from the wilds, and finally create yourself a massive pilotable robot, called a Goliath.

When I first started playing the demo I had just been in a plane crash and found that the other survivor this crash was able to make contact with me over the radio. The survivor told me to start gathering materials and things necessary for my own personal survival, like a fire and a tent. Easy enough, I had an ax which was connected to my robotic arm and I could just hack at some trees for a while. In a way it reminded me of the first time I played Don’t Starve, in which you needed to craft everything from basic materials that were around you.

After a few minutes I began to explore my surroundings to really get a feel of the world that I was in. This was a big mistake as GIANT SPIDERS started to run after me, hungry for my delicious human flesh. I tried to attack the smaller ones with my ax but I died during the onslaught. 4 minutes into the demo and I was already dead. What I discovered was that while you can get knocked out you can’t really die.

I eventually made it to the demos personal base. A small encampment where you’re able to craft goliaths and other useful equipment needed to survive the harsh environments. I was not going to allow the spiders to disgrace me again, and I began to craft the biggest spider crushing goliath I could. This just so happened to be a wooden goliath and the only goliath available to me. There were many different materials goliaths could be made including rocks metals, crystals, and many others and these aren’t just upgraded copies of each other.

Each type has several unique aspects to it, for example the wood goliath that I created was capable of healing itself in rainy weather, but it also made it a target for the typically docile herbivores. These goliaths also allowed you to pick and choose between different heads, arms, torsos, and legs, with one set of legs being a massive wheel increasing mobility. This is where the game really takes off. Finding new recipes for different body parts, or even complete goliaths of a different material.

My goliath wasn’t as unique as it could have been if I had been putting in the time and effort to build the monstrous spider smasher.  I just wanted to get into the thing and find the spiders that ended up killing me. I felt strong, like I was unstoppable in my killing death machine of ultimate doom. I found out that where it would have taken me 5 or 6 chops to cut down a tree on my own, my goliath was able to destroy them in only 2 hits.

Rocks were easy to crush, and monsters were a mere trifle to deal with. That’s when my goliath ended up being destroyed by the spiders. That feeling of power led to me becoming cocky and feeling indestructible. I was able to keep most of the materials which really worried me when I saw the thing explode, but it meant that I’d have to be smarter if I wanted to crush the spiders. Suffice it to say the spiders knocked me out again.

The developer explained to me that when you get knocked out, several days pass in the game world and things might be very different from when you were playing last. It might be raining outside which can cause metal goliaths to rust and become slower, or it might be snowing outside causing rock goliaths to gather the snow around their bodies to gain stronger defenses. The time of the day will obviously be different from when you got knocked out, so it might be dark when even more dangerous monsters lurk. Most importantly though is that several days will pass.

You’re not alone on this strange planet. There are multiple groups on this planet that eventually go to war with each other. These groups are just edible as you, but they didn’t figure out how to build giant robots, so you turn out to be a major player in this war. Siding with a group will be very beneficial as they give you recipes for new weapons and armors that you can make for your goliaths.

If you were to die during the war it could lead the side that you’ve chosen losing ground that’s protecting certain valuable resources. From what I’ve been told It’s possible for you to work out a peace treaty between the groups, but it seems like a very difficult task to complete.

My overall goal of the demo was to find crystals needed to build a teleporter to get to a different map, which was closer to the other survivor. At first I was hesitant to teleport to a new location, because I thought I’d be losing my entire base that I had built up. The developer explained that there was nothing to worry as it all comes with you when you go. Making me feel much more relaxed and I teleported.

This made me aware of the fact that the map that I was playing wasn’t just a small part of the whole world, but each map was a separate level that could look extremely different from place to place. There are deserts and tundra, forests and lava pits. The world you were transported to was made up of various disconnected parts of other worlds it seemed and if you thought you could use a guide to help you through each of the 50 levels your sadly mistaken as this game is procedurally generated so everyone’s game will be different.

This game has potential. There are tons of different combinations of goliaths that you can build and many recipes are learned by completing achievements such as using long range weapons a lot, or helping different groups with various quests.

There are 5 different groups to help out and a war that will force you to choose a side. The maps are procedurally generated and you’ll never know what’s going to be thrown at you next. I can see people playing this game for months and STILL have not done everything. If this is something that interests you, make sure to go check it out over on its Steam page!