Genre: Adventure, Role-Playing
Website: http://playstarbound.com/
Lee:
- Platform: PC
- Hours logged: 13.5
- Playthroughs: --
- Rating: 10/10
- Platform: PC
- Hours logged: 22.0
- Playthroughs: --
- Rating: 10/10
- Lee (2/18/2014): I think we may have stumbled upon the next heavy-hitter in the "Life Consumption" category of video games. Given the depth of the content that this game has to offer (and if Minecraft is any precident), I anticipate the time invested to crawl up to within the range of a couple hundred hours.
From what Shane has told me, there is a ridiculous amount of stuff to do in this game...and it's still only in development. My point here is that I have only experienced a tiny fraction of what this game has to offer. But I did want to take the opportunity to share some initial thoughts. There will be more discussion to follow as I further flush my life down the Starbound toilet.
First of all, my favorite game (with the possible exception of Diablo II) is Minecraft. So far, this game seems to be a two-dimensional rip-off of Minecraft, albeit a more complex and potentially more challenging one. The mining and crafting mechanism are very similar. There are villages full of NPCs. You can grow and harvest crops and trees. And shit wants to kill you.
There are many notable differences, however, like the ability to travel to other planets. (Last night, I dumped some coal into my spaceship and traveled to a frozen moon near my "home" planet. Neat!) There also seems to be a lot more variety in the mobs that you encounter, though they all seem to drop either leather or raw alien meat. Among the dozens of small differences that I've noticed so far, a minor one is that you don't seem to be able to grow trees underground (one of my favorite things to do in Minecraft). I'm sure that I'll be making many more comparisons between Minecraft and Starbound in the future, but suffice it to say that I think there are enough differences to provide a new and exciting gaming experience.
For me, the most satisfying thing to do in Minecraft is to find a fun spot on the surface of the terrain, then start digging out a base underground. So naturally, (after stealing some torches and wood from Shane's base,) my first Starbound task was to set out and find a place to call home. I selected a location at the base of a cliff and, using my Matter Manipulator omnitool, began mining a diagonal tunnel down through the earth. Eventually I dug into a cavern, where I built and placed a crafting table. Using the table, I crafted a bed, a door, and a pickaxe. With the pickaxe, I carved out a cave in the sandy dirt, placed the bed and a torch inside, and installed the door at the cave's entrance. The basics...complete!
Over the next several hours, I built a bow for hunting, and I made a farm to grow corn and wheat (also lifted from Shane's house) so that I would stop dying of hunger. I also dug deeper and explored more caverns. The moment I found my first treasure chest at the bottom of a cavern lake, I knew I was hooked on this game! Stay tuned for more...
- Shane (2/25/2014): When Lee and I were looking for another game to play together I had several ideas. We had just come off of a few frantic weeks of "Firefall," the end of which left us both happy that we played it but there was not enough content to give us more reason to drop in more hours. I was pulling for "Dungeon Defenders." I bought it in a Humble Bundle quite a while ago and played 5 or 6 hours I figure. I also had "Payday 2" and was really excited about that one... but none of these options seemed like things that Lee and I would get that old thrill of "Playing Together" with.
I had seen some screenshots from "Starbound" on r/gaming. It piqued my interest with its whimsical feel. When I then saw some gameplay videos on the Steam page it seemed worth it.
There are a few things that really rustle my jimmies with a new game. This may seem odd but one of the most important points is the environment the game runs in. Multi-player games that allow me to build a dedicated server excite me. I feel more ownership over the experience when I get to do server set up duties on top of whatever else the game is supposed to do. "Minecraft" was this way, "Half-life" and its kin did this for me. I turned my linux server into a server where my brother and I frolic through the pixelated forests. I like that.
Other elements that keep me coming back are solid build trees and collecting items to get better items. I get the feeling that a lot of that functionality has yet to be implemented in this game but they have enough so far to keep me playing, and I love collecting resources for building ever more interesting creations.
The functionality that I look forward to more than anything else, at this point, is selling produce for pixels. Oh my, when we can do that, I intend to set up massive farming structures, piercing the skys of dozens of alien worlds. I will "spawn in" villagers to tend the farms and go on adventures to find exotic plant types. I feel all fluttery in my guts with anticipation of it. Someday.
There have been some problems. We have gone through one character wipe so far (The devs have promised that they aren't going to do any more. They think they have that functionality figured out enough.) and a world wipe (We are going to have at least one more of these before all is said and done.) that reset us to zero. I had some problems with the last patch that cratered my on-ship storage (I lost many hundreds of metal bars and other valuable items.) and deleted several of the installation pieces I build in my "house." This type of bug is not uncommon with pre-release software but all the same, it is a blow when it happens.
I will make more time to dive into this world soon I hope. There is more content being released and SO MUCH more content already in the 'verse that I have yet to experience. I look forward to collecting it.
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