Game Development Reference
In-Depth Information
Starbound
How it's like Minecraft:
Imagine Minecraft as a side-scroller, with more combat and item
variation, and in space! That's basically
Starbound.
The sister game to the most famous side-scroller Minecraft-esque game,
Terraria, Star-
bound
takes the idea of mining, building and crafting and puts it into a space-y, adventure-
filled future.
Starbound
is set to get some major updates going forward, where
Terraria's
run of updates is at an end, thus why we include this spacefaring builder and not its more
famous sibling.
The premise of
Starbound
is one of the most exciting in games for those who have always
dreamed of exploring the stars: you create a quite customized character (in terms of appear-
ance) that is one of seven different distinct races, and you have your own personal spaceship
that you can use to travel between different planetary systems.
Each race has a very particular aesthetic, from the robotic Glitch to the birdlike Avians, as
does each planet you visit. Here's where
Starbound
excels: instead of biomes like in Mine-
craft, you have planets that each have their own particular environment, materials, wildlife
and people living on them (or not). They look entirely different one to the next, and even
have differing weather systems, temperatures and danger levels.
The level of customization between each planet and each character is only expanded by
the absolutely staggering variety of items that are available in
Starbound,
where there are
dozens of different types of dirt, stone and sand alone, not to mention a system of random-
ized weapons that rivals
Borderlands
games in its variety, and quite a few more mob types
than Minecraft.
In many ways the game is very similar to Minecraft- you explore, dig, look for ore, smelt
it, make tools, craft items, find more items to craft better things with, there's a night and
day cycle and building a base is very important. However, there are some major differences,
besides the side-scrolling view and the cute sprite-based art style. The combat and move-
