Starbound: Reaching for the stars
Jan. 14, 2014Starbound: Reaching for the stars
Starbound is an upcoming extraterrestrial sandbox adventure game by the new developer Chucklefish. Having recently entered beta, I would like to share my impressions and excitement about the game so far.
Storywise, the game allows you to chose your hero from one of 7 races, varying from bird-like to fish-looking to robotics, and you can experience their introduction stories accordingly. Playing as an Avian, I was forced to flee my home planet, but eventually ran out of fuel and had to make a stop on a new world to re-stock. From hereon, I could not find a main quest or overall guidance, and was instead left to explore the world and find out what the game had for me in terms of gameplay.
Starbound takes you through the universe, exploring planets, their inhabitants and their resources. Each planet is markedly different and the monsters are procedurally generated which means in each world the creatures will be generated with random pieces based on the location you are at. I have yet to see the exact same monster, and I continue to find rather troublesome opponents. The game features rich and endearing 8-bit environments reminiscent of Minecraft, and focuses on universe charting, item discovery and creation, and community interaction. Your objective then can overcome simple survival and become the creation and sustenance of a world of your own, with a colony of your liking, for which you gather resources by means of exploration and trade.
Creatures and Npcs are not the only dangers to your hero. Yes, even the players can be dangerous if you play on a server with pvp on. Anything from theft to violent murder are tools for players looking to cause trouble and I found no shortage of obstacles from fellow players seeking a fight. I was fortunate, however, in that I found helpful players too. They advised me and assisted me to develop my planet and create an entire colony that has yet to be discovered by anyone I don’t trust. The ability to beam to others ships lets me use the planet chat to tell people I trust the coordinates so they can set the planet to their home and beam to the it from anywhere in the vast Starbound Universe.
The developers have also set up a community poweredwikifor the game. Through it, we can see that they are attempting to map out the entire galaxy but it proves to be nearly impossible since new things are always being discovered thanks to the random generator. From barren planets to Asteroid fields full of life. I have seen scientist colonies and prisons and I am still discovering new things like marketplaces!.
Starbound may be on its beta phase and as such unfinished, but after 200 hours I’m still discovering news things each time I log in. There’s endless exploration and new kinds of npcs and creatures, with entire empires built from the ground up. If you like to tinker and create you will love Starbound, and I would recommend it to RPG players, MMO players, and people that love sandbox games. If you have any questions about the game feel free to ask me any time. This game is availableon steam for early accessif you want to check it out yourselves.
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AshLumi
Very well written Ash! Your writing style is seductive and makes me want to give this game a try…sounds like an awesome game with endless adventures. Please follow this article up with more info.
And write another game review…you do it well! XD
Looks interesting. So how do you interact with other players and what does that accomplish? Advantages? Wish I could get past these types of graphics to play games that seem interesting, but sadly I fail at this.
I use the chat to do things like set up deals for trades, ask for assistance, discuss pay for new players if they work for me, and other things like that if you choose to interact instead of violently murdering people and being evil enough that everyone knows about it.
Oh i see. What does the gameplay compare to? Any game I’d know?
they haven’t added some of the rpg elements yet but it is like dayz with the fact that u can starve and have threats from players and monsters in such a large world. it works with crafting with something like terraria. It has elements that remind me of so many different games and it still isn’t finished. I will be able to give you more information with the next update and eventually when it is finished.
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