
Playable Worlds’ Stars Reach has several news bits this week, and those of you tired of hearing about the Kickstarter that hasn’t even happened yet will be happy to know that only one of them involves said Kickstarter.
Let’s start with that one: Playable Worlds announced this week that everyone who followed the Kickstarter so far – not backed it, obviously, but followed it –Â was automatically entered into the rolling testing phases.
“[A]s a thank you to those of you who helped get over 2,300 people following our Kickstarter – everybody who clicked the link to follow us on Kickstarter is getting invited into one of January’s playtests! That’s right – we pay attention to who in the community is helping us succeed and we want to reward them.”
Note: Playable Worlds has clarified that this applies only to people who had already clicked the “notify me on launch” link on the Kickstarter as of yesterday; invites for the next test have already gone out. (We’re assuming that future followers could also be entered into future tests, but the devs have not expressly stated that.)
The other bit of news is what precisely is being tested this week; the next pre-alpha test is coming up on Saturday for all five of the current test teams – with a bit of new content in the form of The Refinery update.
“The Stars Reach Pre-Alpha journey continues with a new skill tree branch within the Mineralogy skill tree,” the preview explains. “Unlocking that branch allows you to use the Refinery crafting station” – and more than 400 new recipes. Bonus, the devs say they’ve fixed a screen freeze issue – maybe it’s the one I was having last week.
“[P]eople have been asking if by simply following the Kickstarter and helping us build buzz, will they get in a playtest? Our answer is for now, yes! We’ve been able to honor that so far and while our goal is to keep generating buzz, we also want to be honest that at some point, just signing up to follow won’t be enough. That’s not the case yet so hop on the train now before it leaves the station.”
The devs are also running a social media invite promo; players have to take a screenshot of themselves to show they’re following the Kickstarter page, post the Kickstarter page on social media (no specific one specified) while tagging the team (we’re guessing #PlayableWorlds or #StarsReach would suffice), and then sending both of those to the devs (no method specified, but again we’re guessing that any social media like Twitter or Bsky or Discord would do it). This will also net you a spot in a future test round.