Starbound just got a HUGE new update if you’ve been following it lately. If you haven’t then you’re in for a treat. Starbound is a procedurally-generated space themed exploration game that shares many similarities to Terraria; the main goal of the game is like Minecraft, build whatever you want, craft, mine, and talk to wonderful NPCs, or battle your way through the buildings filled with hostile prison inmates, space pirates (No this is not Metroid), and just generally have fun. You start off with the character customizer and and can choose your race, color, hairstyle, clothes, and belly button (because that’s a thing). There are multiple races that all have different tech and armor tiers. The races can be things like Floran, Glitch, Apex, Avian, Human, Hylotl, and the Novakid.These choices generally don’t matter much except for tech and armor tiers, and of course the amazingness of being able to customize your character.
The Starbound character creation GUI
When you first enter the world of Starbound you will find yourself on a ship which has been a bit messed up from some unknown crash or issue. When you walk up to the terminal thingy in the middle of the ship you get some help from your AI powered friend, they should look differently depending on what race you made your character. This AI named S.A.I.L (I have no idea what that stands for) will give you missions on how to repair your broken ship. He will tell you to collect items and such, and once you return with said items you will be able to run commands to repair parts of the ship.
Yeah I’m stuck with this weirdo
Once you repair your ship you can go wherever you please at the cost of a bit of fuel. Wherever you go there will be a lot of animals and NPCs waiting to be talked to/killed. One thing I especially like about this game is that there are giant villages that you can find that have huge buildings and many trading NPCs. When you find these you will be able to get items that are decently rare or not even able to be accessed without trading.
This game also has some funny and interesting nods to geek pop culture such as a shop that is a parody of the mostly illegal torrenting site Piratebay. They even have a fully separate maze game with those weird Doom/Wolfenstien 3D graphics.
Hmmm… this looks familiar.
Altogether, Starbound provides an interesting and fun way to build, fight, and craft. I would recommend it to anyone who likes Terraria, or any other type of 2D sandbox game. The graphics are a nice retro style that works very well with the feel of the gameplay. Also they have adorable penguin loading screens.
Oh y’know just a penguin on a rope
If you feel the need to purchase this little gem, it’s on Steam for $15.