Lost in Space
Starbound's story-driven, planet-hopping adventure kicks off as you narrowly avoid being destroyed alongside your doomed homeworld. Set adrift in the cosmos, you crash into an abandoned space station, which soon becomes a central hub for exploring the galaxy. "Players will be tasked with repairing this station and bringing it back to life whilst investigating those behind the homeworld attack," Brice explains.
Kind of reminds me of the dropship from Aliens.
More than just a means to hunt down nearby planets to explore, the hub station lets you conduct research, augment your character, access tech-tree upgrades, and expand the facilities as you employ NPCs you've rescued on surface missions. "The station's facilities range [widely], from a medical center where players can purchase support items and rest up to a creature lab that allows players to buy monster-related equipment and store caught creatures," notes Brice. "There's even a bar, though the use of which is somewhat secret and not entirely safe." Starbound's station hub is also where you'll access social features and invite friends to play. The entire game can be played solo or cooperatively, and players can form parties to accept quests and travel together.
Beam Me Down
It seems like there's plenty to do while floating around in the depths of space, but that's only the beginning of what Brice has planned. Most of Starbound's action is found planetside. Once on the surface of each procedurally generated world, you're free to explore, battle monsters, take on quests, and interact with the environments. Story-focused missions provide balance to the more open-ended explorative elements, but I suspect a big part of the fun will be in tooling around in each unusual locale scoping out the sights and hunting for new gear.
Now where have I seen that jumping pose before?
"We're putting major time into making sure each planet is as different as is possible," Brice says. "This includes the type of terrain that appears, procedurally generating the foliage, the weather, the day/night cycle, the gravity level, the way enemies appear and their behavior, the materials present, the color of materials and foliage, the backdrops, and more." That's quite a list, but what's equally intriguing is the fact that many of the planets will be expendable, giving you opportunities to create catastrophic events to destroy huge chunks of the world. Good times.
Fueling The Old Gear Fetish
Starbound's extreme level of customization is another aspect I find tasty. Rather than using experience and skill points, characters' appearances and abilities are tweaked through the equipment they're toting. Gear, armor, and weapons fit into familiar categories (swords, blasters, projectiles), but like the alien worlds you explore, their look and function are procedurally generated too, allowing for a ridiculous range of variety. Think Borderlands, and you've got the right idea of what kind of broad scope to expect.
Not the biggest fan of dangerously pulsating bulbous sacs.
Impressively, Brice says this concept also extends to the diverse alien bestiary, whose appearance and behavior can range widely even among individual species. Most creatures can be caught and turned into allied pets too, which makes the closeted Pok¿mon enthusiast in me twitch over the possibilities.
"We really want players to find a synergy between items and invent their own way to play."
Gadgets, too, are said to be plentiful in this limitless realm, and it sounds like they'll have some crazy functions that let you wreak playful havoc. The Kinetic Manipulator, for example, lets you rip huge chunks out of the terrain and hurl them around. While you can use it to terraform, it's also handy for harassing foes. "There are items that support all sorts of play styles, from stealth to tanking, from support to sniper," says Brice. "We really want players to find a synergy between items and invent their own way to play."Pimp My Planet
Random exploration and tackling story missions across the galaxy are fine and all, but for those looking to settle down at some point, the option to settle on a new homeworld of your choosing could greatly extend the open-ended gameplay. Brice says NPCs from your station can be ferried to your new permanent digs, where you'll build cities for them, look after their care, and eventually claim complete control over every aspect of the planet, including the day/night cycle and weather.
Who let the gunfighter in the science lab?
Starbound is an ambitious project brimming with promise. If Chucklefish Games can deliver on these grand ideas while providing a seamless multiplayer experience, I wouldn't be surprised to see a massive community sprout to skyrocket Starbound into another indie success story. The team is aiming for a late summer release, but Brice says he'll keep working on the project as long as necessary to meet its potential.