Indie Focus: Starbound

As we step into 2014, it seems Starbound is the right choice to tentatively lower ourselves into the new year. For those who don’t know, Chucklefish was founded by Tiyuri, one half of Terraria developer Re-Logic. Starbound is somewhat of a spiritual successor to Terraria (which I’ve previously written about on TSA here and here), but while the similarities are obvious the focus of the game has been shifted slightly.

In Starbound, you choose a race, your appearance, and then you’re dropped onto your ship in orbit around a planet. When on your ship you can mess with your inventory, place objects on the ship for fashion or function, research/equip tech, and beam down onto the planet. With your matter manipulator, you can interact with the environment to cut down trees or mine, but this is pretty slow so you had better build some real tools as quickly as possible.

This is where differences to Terraria’s style of gameplay become evident. When you cut down trees they actually fall before bursting into wood for you to pick up, a small change but a nice touch. Pickaxes break rock in a 3×3 area, so you will be covering significantly more ground and more quickly when mining, though if you need a little more accuracy then holding shift lets you break single blocks. The same mechanic is applied to placing materials too, you place in a 2×2 area or hold shift to place a single block. Walls (that is, the blocks in the background on the level) are no longer separate from standard blocks now, as a right click will place blocks into the background, significantly streamlining the building process.

Each planet houses randomly generated wildlife. They are just animals that live on that planet, some of them are hostile, others passive. Zombies and flying eyes don’t suddenly appear at night, as they do in Terraria, but the planet’s inhabitants do get a few levels stronger, which is a less overt game system that makes nights outside more dangerous. You will also encounter NPC buildings such as dungeons and villages that are ripe for the plunder, filled with enemies who are inexplicably shocked that you just killed their friend, despite attacking you first.

It is more of a survival game than Terraria was, especially considering that your character now has needs. For example, you will need to eat regularly to keep from starvation, and if you’re in a cold area you will need to warm yourself with a fire or certain clothing. Cold can sneak up on you, particularly if you’re exploring on the surface and night falls. Liberal use of torches or placement of campfires will help keep the iciness at bay.

These might all sound like incremental changes to the basic gameplay, but Starbound is far more than just that. That shiny spaceship you have orbiting around the planet can also be used to travel through space. It’s as simple as finding some fuel, sticking it into your ship, clicking a planet and then clicking go. Surprisingly, your ship can use very basic fuels like wood and coal, with each one giving a certain amount of fuel cells depending on how advanced the fuel is. If you are going to visit another planet you had better keep an eye on the threat level, as some planets are more dangerous than others.

You are not completely helpless, though. In addition to the armour and weaponry you might expect, you can also acquire tech that will give you powers. You can levitate, teleport short distances, jump extra high, and so on. All you need to do is find the blueprint while spelunking or invading, and also some pixels, which serve as the game’s currency and are dropped by containers and creatures.

I enjoy the idea of Starbound because it gives me the opportunity to explore the universe not really knowing what I will see next. If I had seen any Star Trek series, I’m sure it would remind me of that – new worlds, new creatures, new things to discover and learn about. It is the natural progression for Terraria’s style of exploration and it promises to be excellent.

Starbound is currently in alpha status and available through its official website ($15) and Steam (£11.99).