For those of you already familiar with Exode this is your friendly reminder that the Alpha booster sale will be ending soon as well as your last chance to earn your permanent, account bound, bonus planet. If you are on the fence about Exode, now is the time to decide whether you want to get involved early or wait for it to be more established.

You can read the official update here

On the off chance you are completely new to Exode:

Exode is a blockchain based space colonization game currently being developed. Considering its a one man team, progress is going fairly fast. There is a playable alpha of the first phase, Evacuation, a short scanning scene under active development and colonization gameplay on the horizon.

Evacuation

The most complete feature currently is the Evacuation scene. Using your collection of NFT cards you build of deck consisting of an Origin (your character), a ship, crew and equipment. Your goal is to evacuate a space station under immanent alien attack and to successfully find a planet to settle on. You succeed at the evacuation phase by giving orders to your crew so that you can gather supplies and prepare for launch. It takes about 15 minutes and can be fairly intense.

You can read my "How to Exode: Evacuation" article for more information.
Note: This article is focused on how to play the game so it uses an older version of Exode. Follow the instructions in my followup article "How to Exode: Deck Building" to ensure you get your own planet.

Scanning

The scanning scene is currently in active development. We are expecting the next version VERY soon. I am waiting to write an article about it until we get this new version as it will be a MAJOR overhaul and enhancement of the scene. You can read more about the changes in the official blog here.

To summarize the scanning scene, your ship has successfully warped away from the space station it was docked at. The aliens are still in pursuit of survivors so you need to find a planet to land on and lay low. Currently this involves choosing a pilot to handle running from the aliens in the background while you assign your other crew members to scan for planets. After around 5 minutes you will hopefully find and land on a viable planet. This planet will then be turned into a permanent NFT as a reward for helping test the alpha. This helpful blog post by another fan goes more into detail about getting your planet

If you want to see the current version you can view a recording I made here:

Colonization

This phase is largely cloaked in mystery but is on the horizon! The basic game play will be similar to that of Evacuation though it is designed to last much longer than 15 minutes. As with evacuation you will continue to assign jobs to your surviving crew members. They will explore the planet, gather resources, invent items, hunt creatures and more. You can think of it as a management game with a heavy focus on survival and exploration. Similar to an idle game, you will check it at your leisure and make any required decisions. As an added bonus, you will be able to sell or trade your resources for real money.

The game is also focused on cooperation and PVE so even if you just buy a starter, you will still be able to earn rewards and hopefully profit. Keep in mind it is a game first and a source of profit later. You are not going to instantly earn money, you will need to work for it. To sell a character from your colony you will need to bring them to 100% happiness. To sell a planet you will need to fully explore it. I imagine most other resources will be equally difficult to sell. While you will obtain some account bound cards, such as the cards from the referral bonus boosters, the bulk of your collection can be freely sold or traded. Its just items earned in game take more effort.

Getting Started

To start playing, and lock in your free planet, all you need is a single $10 starter deck. This can be paid for in HIVE or through paypal (receiving your cards may be delayed if you use this approach, but you will get this within a day). Alternatively you can buy all three starters for $20. Each starter is a predefined set of cards and fully capable of successfully getting a planet (though its MUCH easier if you expand your collection through the internal market or by buying boosters).

Once you have your starter, you need to succeed at an evacuation, find a planet, and land, and its yours! If you run into any trouble, don't hesitate to ask me questions.

Further Information

You can learn more about the game at the official webpage as well as reading the developers hive blog.

I am very excited about Exode, it has a lot of potential without the power-creep you find in many games. Since it is PVE focused, it doesn't matter when you join, you will be able to enjoy it just as much if you join during Beta as if you've been following along since the beginning. This is one game I am truly "bull" for.

Thanks for taking the time to read this. Don't hesitate to ask me any questions!