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What the developers have to say:
Why Early Access?
&We were at a point in Starbound's development where it was already pretty fun, so we decided to release the game in beta through early access to ensure the community has a chance to help us shape the game.&
Approximately how long will this game be in Early Access?
&It's difficult for us to give a solid release date-- we're not so good at those, we've learned. Starbound still has a ways to go, but we'll keep you posted via our !&
How is the full version planned to differ from the Early Access version?
&The full version of Starbound will contain a plot and sidequests, more dungeons, more bosses and lore, among other features.&
What is the current state of the Early Access version?
&Starbound is already extremely playable and contains a vast amount of content in its current state! There are two beta branches currently in use-- [STABLE] and [NIGHTLY].
The stable branch receives less frequent updates, as we're currently working on one big update that will complete the first few tiers of player progression.
The [NIGHTLY] branch is updated automatically every night, and is for players who want to track progress or simply can't wait to check out shiny new features. :D Play at your own risk, though, as these builds are not tested and bugs/crashes are likely.
Find out more about how to opt into the nightly builds here: &
Will the game be priced differently during and after Early Access?
&The price will likely change after Early Access!&
How are you planning on involving the Community in your development process?
&We post daily progress updates on our , and we're always hanging around .&
Buy Starbound
$14.99 USD
Buy Starbound Four Pack
Includes four copies of Starbound - Send the extra copies to your friends!
$44.99 USD
Downloadable Content For This Game
$4.99 USD
Recommended By Curators
"Starbound is an excellent sci-fi meets Terraria game. There is a lot of things to do such as quests, exploration, crafting, building, farming, etc."
Recent updates
Hey there, everyone! We've been reading your feedback from last week's stable update, and it seems like most people are really enjoying the new features. We've also seen reports of several minor bugs, so we've pushed out a new update which should address most of these. Thanks to everyone who's given us specific and
it's a huge help!
Fixes in this update:
Fixed a bug causing clients to be stuck in teleport cinematic if they disconnected from a server while it was playing
Fixed a bug that could prevent players' ships from loading after a failed warp
Fixed missing outpost quest NPC, the arcade game quest is now completable again
Fixed a bug causing ship doors to be removed on upgrades
Fixed a bug locking players out of the end of the Erchius Mining Facility mission if they died after defeating the boss
Fixed a bug preventing the lever puzzle in the Floran Party mission from being completed
Fixed damage areas on ceiling and floor spikes
Fixed custom signs being set to 'on' after saving and loading
Fixed a bug causing the game to crash when entering a bad host name in the server join dialog
Fixed a rare bug in world generation which could prevent terrain from generating
Increased NPC energy regen
Greatly reduced server-&client bandwidth for updating player ships
Made additional changes to further improve server stability
Included dump_versioned_json and make_versioned_json utilities for reading and writing various save data formats
Added a /suicide command for characters who are irreversibly stuck
Hopefully these fixes will be helpful to those of you experiencing issues. Let us know in the comments if you find anything new. Enjoy!
As you may have read in our patch notes, the newest stable update saw the 'home planet' feature replaced by planet bookmarks and direct teleporters. This meant that existing players would have to lose their home planets.
But never fear! Ideally you'd have written down your planet's coordinates, but either way your home planet still exists and is intact and you can find it using the following method. :)
Elite Space Hobo from our community beat us to posting a guide, which you can find here.
Find your universe folder. Typically, it should be located in SteamLibrary\SteamApps\common\Starbound\giraffe_storage\universe.
Right click -& sort files by date last modified. If your planet's been heavily customized/built upon, it should be one of the larger files. If you visit it frequently, it should also be one of the most recent.
&What do all these numbers mean?!& World files with names like: .world mean that you've visited a planet with the coordinates X - Y -.
Put the coordinates into your ship's computer and... hopefully, voila! Planet located! If not, try some of the other planets in your universe folder.
Now that you've found your home planet, don't forget to create a bookmark. :)
I hope this proves helpful! &3
Report bugs and leave feedback for this game on the discussion boards
“Starbound is one of the most impressive never-ending games I've ever played.”
9 –
“Starbound's delivering on its core promises even in its early access incarnation.”
“This might be a bare-bones version of the game to come, but boy, check out those bones. The game's minutiae will be mapped out across various wikis for years to come, and many mechanics will be added and refined, but even now, Starbound is an enticing journey of discovery that reminds you just how exciting it can be to stare at a sky full of stars.”
Huge winter update!
The huge winter update is here!
After many months of work the winter update has finally been released. It contains more changes than we can list but below are some of the most obvious updates.
***Universe and Worlds***
Sectors have been removed, so all stars are part of the same map
Star and planet types correspond to difficulty levels, giving players access to progressively more extreme environments as they advance through the game
Added oceanic world types including tropical and arctic oceans, toxic and magma planets
Added rare Barren and Asteroid worlds with no monsters for large scale building
New biomes
New surface and underground mini biomes
Many changes to surface and underground terrain generation
Improvements to background parallaxes and sky coloration
***Ships and Navigation***
Player ships now include an AI avatar specific to each race that gives access to the player’s techs, missions, 3D printer, and a variety of ship-related commands
Each race’s ship has its own unique set of upgrades, giving players much more room to expand as they progress
Fuel costs for travel have been reworked. Moving between planets within a system is now free, while jumps to other systems require fuel in proportion to the distance traveled.
Coal no longer powers spaceships! Instead, they can use either radioactive ores or the new Liquid Erchius Fuel that now appears in Moon biomes
Many improvements to the Cockpit interface, which now indicates more detailed planet information including weather and environmental hazards
***Outpost***
The universe now has a civilized hub containing shops, quests, and other services. This is where players will find quests, missions, and ship upgrades which allow them to advance through the game
Includes a Sign Store based on the popular custom signs mod, where players can design and print their own signage for use in game
***Missions***
At key points in the progression, players will unlock special Missions
Missions take place in unique instanced dungeons containing special monsters, bosses, and rewards not available anywhere else
Some missions can be quite difficult, so you’ll want to prepare carefully - or bring friends!
***Novakids***
New playable race!
Unique progression of craftable guns
Unique progression of armor sets
Unique progression of ship upgrades
***Tech***
Techs are now split into head, body, legs and suit slots, so you can equip up to four at once!
Head techs provide various activated effects triggered using the tech hotkeys
Body techs provide lateral movement abilities triggered by double tapping direction keys
Leg techs provide vertical movement abilities triggered with the jump key
Suit techs provide passive protection from specific environmental hazards
New tech unlocking system makes a variety of techs visible each time the player upgrades their ship. The player can then use Blank Tech Cards to unlock and equip these techs
Many new techs
***Mining***
Matter Manipulator can now be upgraded over the course of the game to increase its mining power, area of effect, and allow it to collect liquids as well as blocks
Pickaxes and drills are more powerful, but have lowered durability and cannot be repaired, making them a consumable alternative to the Matter Manipulator
Smashable rocks found rarely underground contain richer deposits of certain ores
***Combat***
Energy regeneration has been changed. Rather than continuously regenerating energy at a slow rate, energy rapidly regenerates when not being used
Using energy that exceeds your maximum pool will disable energy usage for a few seconds until your energy has fully recharged
New weapon type staves!
Use a staff by holding the fire button to charge it, aiming, then releasing the button to unleash a powerful effect
Unlike guns, staves manifest their projectiles directly at your targeting cursor for precision combat
A variety of staves can be crafted at the new Manipulator Table
Beginning at Tier 5, armors are divided into three different progression paths with different stat balances
Separator armors have high armor and low energy for melee weapon users
Accelerator armors have a balance of armor and energy for ranged weapon users
Manipulator armors have low armor and high energy for staff users
Many new unique biome weapons
More bows (and crossbows) for higher level hunting
Many new thrown weapons of various tiers
Defense Turrets have been massively improved and can be equipped with a variety of weapons for different effects
***Monsters***
New monster type: large flying monsters
New monster type: large aquatic monsters
Many improvements to monster AI
Birds less of a menace
***Survival Mechanics***
Temperature has been replaced by a system of specific planetary hazards, which the player will need to unlock new technology to resist
Hunger has been removed for now, replaced by an expansion of the cooking system with a variety of buffs (see below)
New difficulty option to drop ores and other valuable materials on death
***Farming and Cooking***
New crops
Hundreds of new cooking recipes
Cooked foods now provide a wide variety of buffs, with more elaborate recipes giving stronger effects
***Bug Catching***
Bugs unique to each planet type now spawn across the universe
Use the bug net to collect and display them!
***Wiring***
Most lights in game can now be wired
More interactable switches
More sensors, switches, and logic gates
Fixed lots of usability bugs with wiring
***Other Content***
Many new status effects
Many new costumes
Many new biome furniture/object sets
Many new block types
Many (over 150) new underground microdungeons
Many new toys and novelty items
***Performance Enhancements***
Tile rendering
Liquid processing
Many other optimizations
***Miscellaneous Improvements***
Specialty hotbar slots and keys for Matter Manipulator, Wire Tool and Paint Tool
New font
Keybinding GUI
Character deletion option
***Modding Features***
Items are now scriptable
Status effects are now scriptable
New Script Console functionality gives a client-side scripted canvas to build your own GUIs, games, or whatever you can imagine
Many new Lua API bindings
***Server Features***
Access to tile protection system, preventing modification of specific dungeon IDs
Ability to set spawn point for a world
Several other new admin commands
rcon support
About This Game
In Starbound, you take on the role of a character who’s just fled from their home planet, only to crash-land on another. From there you’ll embark on a quest to survive, discover, explore and fight your way across an infinite universe.
You’ll encounter procedurally generated creatures and weapons, discover populated villages and abandoned temples. Explore planets dotted with dungeons, eyeball trees and treasure. Make use of over a hundred materials and over one thousand in-game objects to build a sprawling modern metropolis or a sleepy secluded cabin in the woods, and do all of it alone or with friends!
Starbound lets you live out your own story of space exploration, discovery and adventure. Settle down and farm the land, hop from planet to planet claiming resources, or make regular visits to populated settlements, taking on jobs and earning a living. NPCs are scattered about the worlds, offering quests and challenges for those looking for a little extra excitement in their lives.
Key Features:
7 playable races
A procedurally generated universe with unlimited procedurally generated planets
All content available in online drop in/drop out co-op
Generated dungeons full of unique enemies
Randomly generated monsters
Thousands of items
A deep crafting system
PVP gameplay
Own and decorate your own Starship
Develop your own home planet
Menacing boss battles
Procedurally generated guns and melee weapons
Farming, hunting and survival mechanics
Built from the ground up to support modding
Ongoing free updates
Multi-platform multiplayer
What will you find?
System Requirements
SteamOS + Linux
Minimum:
OS: Windows XP or later
Processor: Core 2 Duo
Memory: 2 GB RAM
Graphics: 256 MB graphics memory and directx 9.0c compatible gpu
DirectX: Version 9.0c
Network: Broadband Internet connection
Hard Drive: 3 GB available space
Recommended:
OS: Windows XP or later
Processor: Core i3
Memory: 4 GB RAM
Graphics: Discrete GPU capable of directx 9.0c
DirectX: Version 9.0c
Network: Broadband Internet connection
Hard Drive: 4 GB available space
Minimum:
OS: Os X 10.7 or later
Processor: 64 bit Intel CPU
Memory: 2 GB RAM
Network: Broadband Internet connection
Hard Drive: 3 GB available space
Recommended:
OS: Os X 10.7 or later
Processor: 64 bit Intel CPU
Memory: 4 GB RAM
Network: Broadband Internet connection
Hard Drive: 4 GB available space
Minimum:
OS: Debian Stable or Ubuntu 12.04 LTS or later
Processor: Core 2 Duo
Memory: 2 GB RAM
Graphics: 256 MB graphics memory and opengl 2.1 compatible gpu
Network: Broadband Internet connection
Hard Drive: 3 GB available space
Recommended:
OS: Debian Stable or Ubuntu 12.04 LTS or later
Processor: Core i3
Memory: 4 GB RAM
Graphics: 256 MB graphics memory and opengl 2.1 compatible discrete gpu
Network: Broadband Internet connection
Hard Drive: 4 GB available space
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1 person found this review funny
516.2 hrs on record
Early Access Review
I am currently the owner of the biggest multiplayer community of starbound.And Gosh, since this game released, developers always acted like multiplayer didn't exist, no stability, crashes, exploits, ridiculous resource usages and more make a real challenge both run a server and play the game on multiplayer. However i recommend this game. I saw pretty dumb negative reviews, from complaining that the game crashes / lags and that they wiped saves on last update.... you are on the wrong steam section then.Development isn't fast, but this developers are committed to this game, i prefer them to take their time doing it right than rush it and end up on something poor for everybody to play. Side of them made the mistake of give dates, i believe you would agree with me on that.They need to focus more on make the core features they have solid enough and not fell into the temptation of add shiny new items/gear constantly it's pretty much what i would point at the current status of starbound. But i think this game still has a lot of potential for its future, even if it releases without all that firstly intended to have on, it's said to have a post-release team to maintain updates to the game, so the 1.0 doesn't mean it ends there.So just have patience and have good hopes for this game future, it isn't abandoned. :-)
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3,076.5 hrs on record
Early Access Review
Starbound is an excellent 2D exploration game.
It contains features from Terraria, Borderlands, as well as many original and unique attributes. You get to explore a vast galaxy of randomly generated planets.You can raid colonies and dungeons for their loot. You can quietly farm on a safe forest moon and explore the galaxy for crops.You can play as a cute pink flower person that eats people and shoot robotic knights on robot horses with a laser cannon.10/10
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1 person found this review funny
754.0 hrs on record
Early Access Review
Starbound.Every second of playing the game is worth it, And once you start understanding and going deeper into the game it gets even better. It's worth supporting unless you're just going around disliking every review avaliable. First impressions aren't usually surprising but, Give it a chance. You might just say it's like most sandbox games of this genre, Digging, Mining, Building a house, Gathering resources and killing things, but, This gives it a little spark. It shows that it is more than unique with it's amazing artstyle. Every update they reveal to the game makes it even better, But sadly there's always an end to the story, To the point where you would check the game one time or another because you've accomplished everything, But that's most games of this genre, Don't be surprised that you suddenly cannot think of something to do in the game, That you're end game and that there's nothing to accomplish anymore, That the story has come to a halt without an end, But that's the genre, it's suppost to be endless, It's like chewing gum, It's usually tasty, But the more you progress and chew, It starts to run out of flavour, So you buy a new pack, Make a new character and start from another point of view. But if you're /that/ bored that you've 100% the timeline of all 7 races, I salute you. Practically this game shines a new light and what could potantially be a change. It's not that you're on a single world or having an infinite world, But you get an infinite amount of worlds to explore, Varying in difficulty or requirements to safely teleport down to it. And it's always something different, Unless you're just lucky and travel to the same planet with the same mini-biomes, Iunno. It keeps you knowing where you're suppost to go with &Suits& that you gain that protect you from a planet's environments, Preventing you from just skipping more than enough stones in power. It's fair and is needed to be earned via quest to progress. Usually post-winter update you just had to gather resources and &git gud& without an objective, Now it puts a new meaning into progression in the form of &quests&, the act of preforming and completing a request from someone in &The Outpost& rewarding you with the bravery on your armor, Allowing you to progress and give more missions to complete, Which of course shines light on even more obtainables to make it even better. If you think they're just releasing an unfinished game for the money, Think about all the paywalling apps there are. I think of unfinished games as &A taste of what it could be& rather than &An excuse to sell underveloped products only for money&Besides, I could consider it done.And a very enjoyable experience....And worth the time.Conclusion? My hands and eyes hurt.
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212.5 hrs on record
Early Access Review
I love how many types of planets there are to deforest.
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38.4 hrs on record
Early Access Review
Land on a planetCollect everything you findKill everything that movesSteal everythingFind new favorite costumeRedecorate entirely your ship so it matches with your new favorite costumeAdmire yourself and your shipWant to craft new stuffComplain you don't have enough ingredientsLand on another planet to find the ingredientsYou find rarer stuff but not the common ingredients you needComplain about it and stop playing StarboundLaunch it again because you love that gameTry to drown your pet by filling your ship with water, oil, coffee, fuel and poisonComplain it doesn't workRedecorate shipLand on another planetFind a structureSteal everythingReturn to shipPut all of your stuff in chests that you will never open againLand on another planetFind Horse HeadRedecorate shipDestroy chests to redecorateInventory already fullPut chests everywherePut all of your stuff in chestsUgly ship, horse head, nakedTake screenshotFinally take a real and serious questStop at the beginning of the quest to redecorate shipGet boredWipe entire planets with violence and funPut everything you stole in chests to never remember you have those things ever againRepeat. Every day. 10/10
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83.3 hrs on record
Early Access Review
Not gonna lie, when i first got the game it was an alright game... I go on the game today after not playing for a while and the amount of features the developers have added is amazing! keep it up and, buy this game!
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2 people found this review funny
543.2 hrs on record
Early Access Review
Fun game, but it doesn't really fully deliver in places and has been in beta stage one (of four, I think) for a couple of years now. Packed with memes, references and very dry puns, down to having randomly generated m41a pulse rifles and soylent green. Many features that have been promised or planned are not implemented for a long time after they are announced, and features that aren't very enjoyable/features that are mass-requested don't see much work or love from the developers.Best with mods - Though it may be harsh, I believe that the modding community has done far more for this game than the developers have, and I would greatly encourage new players to look into its modding forum(s), or even try making their own mods, as it's pretty easy. Entire race/faction mods, large item packs, atmospheric/survival mods and more are available to make the game experience much more fulfilling and palatable than vanilla.Pros-Offers a large amount of content to play with, allowing the player to truly do what they want.-Quick-to-learn and intuitive controls-Omni-tool based mining/building, with larger block mining radius later in the game.-M with relatively little modding experience I've put together clothing, food, weapon, and even race mods on my own in short periods of time. Cons-Metric crap-ton of memes and references, as mentioned above-Extremely silly at times, especially in randomly-generated weapons and some items. Imagine a cross between a jezail and an M16, or a purple shotgun that shoots pigs. These are real combinations.-Races aren't terribly creative for a science fiction game, though it's not too bad. You have humans, ape people, plant people, bird people, sun people, fish people, and robots.-Very repetitive gather-craft-repeat gameplay. Random-generated quests aren't fully integrated yet, existing quests are all fetchquests.-Very dry and underworked lore. The general gist of it, spoiler alert:A long ????ing time ago in the middle of space-nowhere the guy who made TRON, and the greatest hentai (don't look it up kids) artist of all time, got together and floated through space for no reason. TRON guy created TRON and died of old age, while his hentai-artist friend gave birth to an octopus and died shortly afterward, leaving two corpses, TRON/CLU/whatever, and octodad, to float through the void of space for a long time. Eventually TRON and octodad became great friends and spread life and creation throughout the universe or something, until TRON caught octodad banging his hot program wife, and decided to kill him. TRON was a really cool guy and just wanted a clean one-on-one fight in the Alpha Centaurii playground but Octodad was like &WRHRRRRRBL RLLRRLBRL!!!&, and decided to royally ???? over everything the both of them had made, including the primitive civilizations that would become the fish/bird/sun/robot/man/ape/plant people we all know and love or hate. During the fight, TRON got his ??? kicked, and most of Octodad's many disfigured children were killed, but with Octodad's dying breath he flung his last ??????? son towards the shining planet of Kobol Earth, where Humanity would be born some time like a thousand years later. Eventually humanity did come along, and was all cool and- we're already humans and know what happens so we're skipping this part. So humanity is doing fine on its own, getting out of college and settling down, when out of nowhere Octodad's son Squiddocles bursts out of the ground and starts tearing the place apart. Everyone flees and we're all in space, drifting around aimlessly.Eventually the USCM (our wicked-nasty space army) is formed and we're fighting plant people that would come to be known as the &florans&. They aren't important right now so onto the Apex: A group of crazy nutjobs splits off from mainstream Humanity, and uses this technology stuff (presumably made by very ugly people) that regresses the body physically by several evolutionary phases, while increasing the power and capacity of the brain. These guys go off and start their own dystopian super-smartypants society, ruled by this guy &Big Ape&, otherwise known as King Kong. If you don't worship King Kong and give him all your bananas, you die in this universe. Don't question it, they're watching. Back to the florans: The florans were discovered by the Glitch or the bird-people or whoever, and some dumbass decided it was a smart idea to give the savage cave-plants space technology, presumably in the hopes that they'd use it for good, in order to learn and spread peace and oxygen everywhere they went. That was very wrong, and they set about killing and eating anything that lived, including eachother. Not much else happenned. The japanese space-fish discovered them eventually and they're like, locked in mortal combat or something. Then we have the bird people and the robot people. These are the jackasses that decided it was smart to give the plants technology, as stated above. Both of them are pretty insane, having an extreme disregard for individual or &free& thought, the Avians worshipping their (fake) god Kluex to the point of blood sacrifices and religious cliff-jumping suicide fun, and the Glitch killing off any of their number that exhibit self-awareness, because they're paranoid or something. Both societies reflect older periods in Humanity's times, Avians resembling mesoamerican societies while the Glitch are stuck in the dark ages because some random thing caused them to... have a glitch and do that. Both factions were allies or something for some time, sharing information and (presumably) tech, and then the Florans came along and threw a log in the works, and now they hate eachother and sit there stagnating. The Japanese fish people kindof just exist to kill the Florans and spread &peace& or something throughout the galaxy. Their civilization resembles a number of ancient Asian nations, and they wield katanas and, in general, kick ???. I don't really pay much attention to them or know where they come in canonically, but they also eat smaller fish and have that weird thing going, where it'd be like humans eating monkeys and everyone being okay with it. Now that I think about it the Avians probably do that too. Gross.The novakids were created when a sun farted and copied humans and are there purely because they were picked by the devs to be put in from community-made content. I have practically nothing to say about them because they aren't included in 90% of the game in its current state. They look cool though.
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5.7 hrs on record
Early Access Review
This game is virtually epic.
But there are some bad things too.
First off, the controls are confusing. You should probably go and set them to what you prefer in the options menu.
And the hotbar is weird as you have your normal slots, 2 for your hands when your not using the normal slots and then 3 slots below them of which one is for your Matter Manipulator(your hands).
I also hear though I have quite not faced one yet that the bosses are difficult compared to the regular monsters the game throws at you early game.
For good things, the crafting system is really good and you can do recipes quick and easy using an search bar and categories and chests are easily accessible.
You should not really have a problem with the game if you can get the right equipment and have adequate fighting skills.... Just don't go all out of the game and going sandbox mania, there is a sort of path you have to take like Terraria in order to progress in the game and don't go to fast either, especially if you are NOT doing a speedrun.Overall, the game is also early access beta so still needs some improving but it is a fairly good game made by chucklefish.
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2 people found this review funny
823.5 hrs on record
Early Access Review
This game got alot of flack because Chucklefish went silent for a while and people thought it was an abandoned project.Turns out Chucklefish was just working too hard to bother making any wab updates, they started up again a couple months ago and there is now three update branches, Stable, Unstable and Nightly. Nightly is the most glitched, as it's updated every midnight, so play nightly at your own risk. I play Unstable and they just gave it an update, the addition of quests has changed the game quite a bit, there are now quests as opposed to just 'get this ore, build this thing, repeat'. You need to prgress so far in the quests to get to a new solar system. This game used to be like a bigger Terreria with less point, now it's finally turning into what was promised and Chucklefish is giving us regular updates again. They're introducing new bosses, I've only so far had to tangle with Dreadwing(the penguin UFO) and they haven't tweaked him much aside from give him a bazillion and three HP and he has his own level you can't build on. So while he's not that much harder, he's ????ing hard.If you got it and stopped playing give it another shot, I'm not sure if stable branch has been updated to the new quest system yet, though, I'm on unstable. If you don't have it and like sandbox tree punching sims definately give it a shot.EDIT:Hey Terreria fanboys, unless your crappy attempts at snarking can make me laugh like Sid1120's down there I'm deleting them. I'm sorry if this offends you. Also I accedently deleted a post from somebody who said Chucklefish was being 'condescending' to fans during the silence, didn't mean to, accedental double click. I didn't consider that a snark and can't comment on it as I was taking a haiatus until updates started again.ANOTHER EDIT!:I was completely unprepared for so many votes... My second most popular review has one downvote.
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2 people found this review funny
498.2 hrs on record
Early Access Review
Despite still being in Early Access, Starbound is my favorite game in sandbox exploration/building genre.In comparison with Terraria (which I expect most people at least heard of), Starbound puts much stronger focus on exploration rather than fighting. Rather than adventuring in a single world, in Starbound you travel between different planets each not only belonging to a particular biome, but containing some of unique features from a fairly large list, from peaceful villages to dungeons filled with zealous guards. So you never know what you will find on each new planet you visit, which makes exploration very addictive: you will always want to explore “just one more planet”!In terms of combat and other game mechanics, Starbound already has pretty solid core mechanics at this point of development, though they keep being tweaked and some core mechanics may still change in the future.In short, I fully recommend Starbound to anyone who likes sandbox games or want to give this genre a try. And don’t be put off by it being in Early Access – Starbound is already perfectly playable and fun at this point of development.
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1 person found this review funny
287.3 hrs on record
Early Access Review
So many people are giving this awesome game a negative review simply because the &Dev's havent done anything&...Alright, watch this: and explain to me that the &Dev's havent done anything&Edit: Ignore all those other negative reviews that say &The devs never update the game& ... the devs released word that, instead of releasing multiple small updates in the actual game, they'd do so in a beta version so folks could keep up with events. There's many players writing reviews that're completely ignorant of this fact.Edit(2): People have mentioned that the &major problems& arent getting fixed... This update shown in the video, plus the claims that Chucklefish has made point to the fact that they will HOPEFULLY be fixed.Edit(3): For those who're hating the game because of the developers and their BS in the past... Starbound itself is an AMAZING game to mod, and it has a MASSIVE modding community. If you hate the game for WHATEVER reason, the mods will most likely change your mind.Edit(4): If you're going to react negatively toards my review, please do so in a mature way. If you plan on actually proving a point to me as to how I am incorrect, by all means, tell me. But if you're going to be mean about it, i'll simply block you and delete your comment. You'd be wasting your time, honestly.Comments section has some neat points, go read it. Sorry to all the folks who didn't find my review helpful. I tried.
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1 person found this review funny
586.0 hrs on record
Early Access Review
The game has progressed but not much. They've changed some systems around and added quests, but a lot of the game's core issues have not been addressed. I think the game is better but because they keep ignoring the glaring problems the game has, my opinion that people should wait if they've not bought it has not changed in any way. They've spent a very long time promising change and the amount of the game that has been fixed or updated is not substantial considering the time they've taken to get Upbeat Giraffe out to the public and into stable. In a year, one would expect most of the game to be done after having been released to the public for beta. Call it alpha all you want, it was a beta.-Before I get to my points, something needs to be said here. There are accusations going around Steam (because the people here refused to go to the official forums and learn anything and then just repeat what they read here in review comments) that Chucklefish has scammed and lied. Not once has this ever happened. They are a small indie company, they're not EA. They can't just puke out a game with 50-200 people working on it. The unstable updates were consistent. If you were not aware of that and that was why you thought no progress on the game could be found, then your ignorance is to blame for your opinion. Go to the official forums, educate yourself.-Here we go:Rain comes through off screen blocks and causes indoor flooding. Large quantities of water do not persist as it randomly drains both
off screen and on. These bugs have been around for a year and it is shameful that they're still there. I created a decent sized tub of water and the surface continued to drain over the course of 10 minutes despite my thorough placement of backdrop and border blocks.Game still suffers from crippling framerate problems. The more blocks and decorative entities in an area, the worse the framerate drops. It gets more severe over time until it is unplayable. Using the 64 bit experimental launcher helps but not entirely. They've stated that they're going to optimize the engine when they're done adding new systems but, with their reputation, I would not hold my breath. It's definitely better across the board (especially server side) but it still gets bad. Server latency issues from CPU and memory not releasing properly still exist. Fresh reboot -& Guy logs in right after that and moves sand or water -& 2,000 ms latency on high grade server hardware with fios connection.Mob spawning is extremely annoying. They spawn over and over even in areas where you've built lights and man-made materials. So, in towns you make, monsters spawn everywhere. I've not seen them spawn indoors but for them to spawn in such vast numbers right outside the door is unnecessary and irritating. Their behaviors were tweaked so fighting them is less annoying but that turns out to be a wash when they made up for that by increasing their spawn rate. Their behaviors are less annoying but they spawn way more frequently... no advancement made.Building is still useless. There is no reason beyond aesthetic and creative reasons to ever build anything or revisit planets. The only form of protection we have is /settileprotection which utilizes 2 different area IDs I've seen. The IDs are 65535 and 65532. One stops damage to naturally generated objects and the other stops damage to player-placed objects. It affects the entire planet you're on when you use it and can be sort of useful... but randomly feeds back a 'Failure' error in the chat log when used. The error stops after a reboot but randomly comes back. So, if you're staff on a server and you're not the host, you may not be able to issue a restart since there is no method for remotely doing that. Meaning, if you toggle the protection one way and you need it the other way, you might get it stuck that way til you can contact your host for a reboot. Which also means if you turn protection off for editing purposes, can't get it back on and can't get in touch with the host, your server could get attacked by griefers and you'll end up screwed. There is currently a massive outcry on the official forums for more attention to be shown to server-side systems. Hopefully more than Linux will see attention.We have to rely on thirdparty wrapper software made by fans like you and me in order to properly administrate servers. These wrappers often cause more problems than they solve. For example, StarryPy crashes users if they look inside of chests or other container objects on a planet that has protection enabled provided they are not on the planet protection list. These wrappers also cause latency issues because they use up more memory than the default server software. Having to rely on thirdparty software to fix problems that exist in the basic game is a problem gamers have had to deal with for decades. It, to me, is unacceptable for game developers to shoehorn in a multiplayer component to a game and then leave it up to shoddy thirdparty software to fix the problem. It never does fix those problems and, most of the time, the creators of the thirdparty software (Starrypy, Starrybound) end up abandoning the projects or not being able to keep up with demand for o usually their personal lives prevent them from being able to find the time or motivation to work on the projects. The programs end up outdated and useless. If the developers themselves would just fix the server-side components to their games, we could avoid that problem ENTIRELY and a lot of frustration would evaporate. Anyone remember Tshock for Terraria? Getting support for that game meant dealing with extremely hostile community leaders and developers who literally said they'd be nicer to people if someone paid them more. Don't even get me started on Minecraft's Bukkit. Developers create the online component then forget it exists.Developers: fix your own damn games!NPC guards have this behavior where they will follow you and assist you which you can toggle with the interact key. But, this variable does not persist off-screen. They will say they'll follow you automatically (annoying) then when you tell them to stay, walk away and come back even a couple minutes later, they've forgotten you told them to stay and they follow you again.Novakids are very creative and the theme is interesting. Melding cowboy aesthetic into the 'Starpeople' race is pretty clever. Their weapons are revolvers and rifles. There is also a new delete button on the character screen, a welcome addition.The quest system offers a very refreshing take on progression. Now, you talk to your ship AI in a console on your ship and are given quests to complete. These quests help you progress through the game instead of you just digging for ore -& making object -& crafting item to summon boss -& killing boss for drop -& repeat X times as it was in the previous stable update. Quests change this up so it isn't nearly as linear. Though, there is no option to skip the tutorial and once you've done it one time, you'll be sick to death of having to do it on other characters.My previous review saw this game sitting at 5/10 and I suggested people wait it out even though the time it takes Chucklefish to do anything is questionable. The fact they have hired a group to sell Starbound T-shirts when we still have so much in the game that needs fixed shows that they have a problem with priorities. Liquid exists in the game but can't settle if there is too much of it, rain goes through blocks and hackers still make hosting a server a nightmare because files are still clientside... but we get t-shirts and some near useless outpost vendors. Fix the game, stop adding things. Focus your attention on making server hosting feasible without using a whitelist. THEN go add whatever you want to the game.Singleplayer ends.Multiplayer is your replayability. 5/10, no change. Wait it out.
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84.6 hrs on record
Early Access Review
Recent update greatly improved overall perfomance, so now even on my system it runs smooth. Those who abandoned game because of that - give it another try.Those who are unfamiliar with Starbound - if you like games like this, give it a try.
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1 person found this review funny
126.2 hrs on record
Early Access Review
This game is really really fun. It has a long progression time, meaning you have LOTS of time before you reach end tier gameplay, which is awesome. As it is I think it is a very fun game...However, and this isn't in my personal opinion enough to not recommend the game, the updates are really slow. New content is released in unstable builds quite regularly, but it's not necessarily &big& updates.I took a break well over a half a year year ago since playing the game back when it first came out. When it first arrived the game was quite bland, with abusable bosses, and the only progression being &mine ore, fight boss, craft crafting bench, mine ore, fight boss, craft crafting bench, etc. etc.&, although the atmosphere was (and still is) quite amazing.Now in the new &big winter update& version, it's a heck of a lot better, with a ship you upgrade over time, an interesting active ability system, quests, dungeons, mini dungeons, and a fairly well paced progression system, among countless other fun things. I remember getting a good number of friends on my server with different instruments, and we all got together in a band and played a song, and it was pretty cool. There's a lot of possibilities to explore with what's provided.For the building oriented players, I don't think it's quite on the level of games like terraria and minecraft, however the addition of wiring and futristic technology, along with lots of tile sets can allow for some pretty interesting building design. The game is certainly more combat oriented than it is building oriented.I mean all in all, it's a pretty cool game, just keep in mind if you want a massive universe full of amazing discoveries and an MMO style experience, where you can run into other people on other planets, or if you want more than repeated structures and naturally generated terrain to find as you explore new planets, that's not in the game yet, and given the current pace, it's going to be a long long time before that goal is reached.Recommendation: Skim a few youtube videos and watch a few trailers. If you think you'd like the game in it's current state, buy it now, have some good fun, and then put it off to the side for a while and come back later when it's more updated. It'll be the gift that keeps on giving. If you don't like it in it's current state, but like the planned features, you might have to wait a good while for those, but I would recommend you go through with that wait, since you never know what might happen to the development before those features arrive.
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1 person found this review funny
268.7 hrs on record
Early Access Review
I've been playing this game on and off since it launched. Before that I was patiently waiting for it, keeping myself busy with Minecraft and Terraria. Games like these aren't for everyone, and I know there's been a war with the fans of these games claiming that they're knockoffs of eachother. Honestly, I don't really think that's fair. That's pretty much declaring all games of a certain genre to be knockoffs of one another. Starbound's got a lot of things that other sandbox's don't have, but it's also got a lot of things that they do have. Basically, Starbound plays like T a side-scrolling/do whatever you want type of game. It has RPG elements, crafting, etc. It has a pretty solid OST, but in my opinion it doesn't really feel Sci-fi. The sprites are gorgeous. The environments are gorgeous. And the creatures.... The creatures range anywhere from downright disgusting in appearance to cute as a button. The kicker is that the cute ones are often the nastiest, and will attack you relentlessly. I've not found two planets that were exactly the same. I'm the type of gamer that rotates from game to game out of boredom, but there are some games that are very special to me that I consistently play. Starbound is among them. I only recommend this game to gamers who have played Terraria or Minecraft and have an open mind. The updates can be a bit sluggish at times, but the changes I've seen have been glorious. And please for the love of Talos, opt into the nightly builds before you claim no changes have been made. Right click on the game, go to properties and from there it's pretty much self-explanatory. Happy travels, Starbounders. ヽ( ★ω★)ノ
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1 person found this review funny
64.1 hrs on record
Early Access Review
Starbound starts off feeling like it's going to be a great experience when you finish your tutorials and beam down to a planet to explore/build/fight Pokemon. An hour in and you're feeling pretty good about your decision to buy the game, you're feeling like this is a solid experience. A couple hours later, you've explored and seen quite a bit. Maybe you've built yourself a shantytown or a castle. However, you have noticed that the game can sometimes be very plain. Eventually, the idea that the game is rather plain becomes so persuasive that you feel you need to say so or recommend a great idea for new content on the forums. There is only a short time now before you realize why Starbound has so many negative reviews. Enter Chucklefish, the developers of Starbound, some of them came from an optimistic place like Terraria and even more of these devs came from parts unknown. At first we wanted to give Chucklefish our money for Starbound, we even practically threw it at them and told them to shutup and take it. They were more than happy to take our money from us, as any company would probably be.Days went by, months went by, we're very close to a year now, less than a month at the time of this review. There have been no updates to the game. Oh but wait, there are &nightly builds& which tout daily updates to the game, what you get when you opt into beta nightly builds is a mess that crashes so often that it should be a new meme. There are also Devblogs that advertise things that have already been in the game since it was added to Steam as something new they're adding to nightly builds. That's right, they're pretending old content is new content.I wanted Starbound to succeed, I pre-ordered it and couldn't wait for all the rewards with pre-order. We were promised a new class and fossils you could dig up, we still don't have the pre-order rewards after all this time. If you go to the official website you may see a different tale, but I assure you that's only because they delete any bit of criticism from the site, no matter how honest it is. The developers of Starbound also have a hallowed history of flaming and insulting customers they disagreed with. Couple all of this with what they're doing now (advertising old things in the game as new) and you're left feeling that Chucklefish is just a gang of con artists.I'm sorry my review is like this, but it's the truth. You would do well to stay away from this game until the developers in Chucklefish can be mature enough to deliver what they promised with no drama. If they don't deliver what they promised in this game, I will be buying nothing from them in the future. I might even do that anyways to make an example that it's not okay to do the things they did to your customers.
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162 people found this review funny
100.6 hrs on record
Early Access Review
First a sidenote: it says that I have played Starbound for 100 hours. This is from the launcher being up in the background as I seldom turn off my computer.The real number is closer to something like ten, maybe even less. I write this because people will be tempted to call me out on one hundred hours of time played must mean that I actually love the game, just like how I love waiting for the bus, which I have probably also done for several hundred hours in real life.This game has so many positive reviews specifically complaining about negative reviews that I am almost tempted to callChucklefish out on paid lobbyism, but maybe these are just run-of-the-mill fanboys.Many negative reviews have been misrepresented so I will try to explain what my problem is in as clear a way as possible.Basically it boils down to this: It was supposed to be released in 2013. Two years later and it is still in early access.Some people have argued that they never update the game. This isn't true and fanboys as well as chucklefish themselveshave used this as a strawman to brush off all criticism. The problem isn't that they haven't done anything. The problem is that they are two years behind schedule, and seem all too content to move forward at a slovenly pace after making a quite ridiculous sum of money. You'd think this cash would encourage them to take their own release dates a bit more seriously. I get it, people don't always make the right predictions in terms of timescale. In fact, more often than not they get it wrong.Take the concept of Valve-time for instance. But come on, two years behind schedule, still more artists working on the game than programmers(four programmers for those who are curious), despite a good bit of money having been made from it even before it is finished. And to top this off they are appearently working on a new game before this one is even finished. Not finished and two years behind schedule, mind you.For people who still don't see the problem: time matters. People change. Chances are you didn't wish for the same stuff you wanted last year or the year before that for christmas.If you order a pizza you might be dissapointed if the delivery guy is an hour late, and if he is stuck in traffic so heavy that he won't be able to deliver it for at least two years, despite having your money already, well, the good news is that in the future you will one day be pleasantly surprised with a cold pizza being delivered to your front door.Unless the pizza company has closed down in the meantime.Some people also have the good faith to assume that Chucklefish spending so much time on this game is a sign of passion, love and the quality work that goes into it.Choosing to believe that they do this so that the game will be as good as possible before release.My comment on how time plays a part in our appreciation and desire for things nonwithstanding, I invite these people to check out the gem that is Duke Nukem Forever. At least that's one turd nobody paid for before it was released.I wouldn't even be so annoyed at this very casual attitude towards profiting several million dollars, breaking your release date with two years and counting, and getting annoyed when people ask when the game is coming out (google up some old tweets from Tiy), if most of their updates didn't consist of visual content in the vein of furniture, clothing etc.To me the novelty of dressing up an alien monkey wears off quickly. What I am looking for is things that extend actual gameplay. Thing like quests, non-procedurally generated npc's, new game mechanics.Yes there has been some of that, but not two years worth. Not by a very long shot.Maybe this game draws so much ire from me since it was the first early access game I bought into. It will probably also be the last, now that I am no longer naive enough to think that developers won't abuse the freedom of this particular business model.Do buy: If you are amused by dressing up cute alien sprites in different clothes, and if good pixel art alone is enough for you to be satisfied.Don't buy: If you are compelled by the idea of a vast adventure spanning an entire universe. The vast adventure consists of procedurally generated content and a handfulof quests. And only if you play the unstable buggy release.
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1 person found this review funny
18.8 hrs on record
Early Access Review
A Brief History of Chucklefish and the CommunityFirst, people complain when the stable updates are too frequent to keep your save for very long.So, in response, they change their updating routine and create a nightly channel to see a snapshot of their progress every 24 hours.Nobody switches, ?????ing commences because they don't see any progress and assume the game is dead.In response, the dev team starts frequently blogging in order to show everything they've been working on, including the arduous task of refactoring code (which is very important, but you can't have snazzy screenshots to show for it)People don't read the blog, and proclaim that the game is dead.Those that do read the blog complain that the latest releases are buggy.Entitled gamers want everything now.Where is that picture of a triangular diagram showing fast, stable, and fun with the caption &Pick Two&?Christ almighty people, you can't have frequent updates, have those updates include lots of features, and have them be stable. Either be patient, or help them bugtest by playing nightlies. Otherwise you'll leave them no choice but to halfass the content!What's that? The game? Oh, yeah, I think it's pretty good. I like the setting and character design, the procedurally generated content is impressive, and it's been getting better over time. If you're into voxel-like survival/design games, then this is a good choice.
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34.6 hrs on record
Early Access Review
Starbound does for me what Minecraft couldn't.
Instead of taking forever to explore one island I can take forever to explore a few solar systems.
But then I can travel to any of the thousand other systems and explore them as well.
The different material types are as varied as Minecraft and then some.
You can grow food, build buildings, create better materials, hunt creatures, get into shootouts with the locals, etc.in the latest version you can expand your ship.
You don't even have to develope planet-side buildings anymore if you don't want to.
You can literally live off your ship and expand it as you go.
There are now also more fuel types (fuel is needed to move between star systems), some more ceocentrated than others.With the outpost you now have access to more quests, which means more adventures.
They can be as random as &Find me a stone USMC sign&.
Do you remember what planet on what system you found that USMC prison colony?
You don't?
Time to go exploring and find another to get that sign!There are &dungeons& on pretty much every planet.
You can dig down into the planet and find gnomish villages.
You can dig through several different layers of the planet and find everything from mushrooms to buried laboratories to underground lakes full of acid, all of which you can break down with your tool and use for yourself, either in a crafting recipe or as a decoration for your home(s).If you like open-world construction games of a blocky nature, then this one is definitely worth trying out.
There are many to choose from these days and eveyone likes one more than the others.
If you're still searching for &the one& then play this one.
You search will be over.
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2 people found this review funny
223.1 hrs on record
Early Access Review
Starbound, hailed as Terraria 2.0 or Terraria in Space. Edit: To the people do read my review before you judge it. I share the same issues most &negative reviewers& do, but I have had more than 200+ hours of gameplay from this game, and so have most of the &negative reviewers& as well, and for an Early Access game, that is pretty good, is it not? Despite it's flaws. So before you blindly judge it based off slow development, read the following:I have waited with reviewing this game until they posted more updates, but have owned it since it was released to the public - and had 200+ hours within the first 2-3 months of the game being released, a lot of those due to mods, but the game is coming around now on its own as well, adding a lot of the features mods used to.If you loved Terraria, you will love this, no questions asked, just get Starbound and play it. If you never played Terraria, well ask yourself this:Does exploring space in your own spaceship, in a 2D pixelated universe sound amazing? Does building cool space-bases throughout various random planets sound fun? Does exploring the universe and digging to the planets cores sound daring enough for ya'? If that is the case, then Starbound might just
be for you.While I will recommend this game, I do have some minor (and I STRESS &minor&, because I do love Starbound) issues that I am not fond of. The developer of the game promised large updates frequently, however, since it released 1 year and 2 months ago, there has been approximately 4 &decent& updates to the game - which have added a proper amount of content to the game. Starbound still has quite a ways to go before it should be considered a full game. And while I understand the quarrels of coding and programming, the actual design part of adding new blocks, biomes, monsters (although monsters are plenty as it is), items, weapons, etc. is not that hard in a 2D pixel game, and some of the updates focused heavily on adding only these (a lot of cosmetic stuff like hats), with minor additions to other parts of the game.And just to make a note, if that previous paragraph bummed anyone out too much - I will repeat, I do recommend this game, and in the first 2-3 months of the game being out I played 200+ hours with plenty of fun and shenanigans. And I am eagerly awaiting the day Starbound is released as a full game. Starbound has a great future, and definitely has a lot of hours worth of content now (which is more than most Early Access games), and additionally there is a plethora of mods that will give you even more play-time.So yes, I would recommend Starbound in a heartbeat.Plus, the Winter Update just added Llamas in Space!
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Title: Starbound
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Release Date: 4 Dec, 2013
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