I m a space cowboy made of stellar gas and I ve spent the day farming. Starbound [official site] is a gargantuan galactic playground jam-packed with gunfights, planet-hopping adventures and tomb raiding, but I ve probably spent just as much tending to my crops, decorating and going on shopping sprees. I m utterly content.
It's been a little over three years since the side-scrolling extraterrestrial sandbox adventure game Starbound first went up for preorder. The game has come a long way since, through multiple major updates, mod support, and, a couple of months ago, news that it's finally (almost) ready to leave Early Access. Today came the next big step: The announcement of an official launch date of July 22.
Yay @StarboundGame finally has a release date... and it's super soon! :D pic.twitter.com/fPSZ1hC29nJuly 8, 2016
After ~5 years, the game we set out to make finally exists, and to say that it all feels a bit surreal would be a massive understatement! developer Chucklefish wrote. While Starbound will be finished in two weeks, this isn t the end. We will continue to update and support Starbound for as long as we can. We ve got loads of cool ideas we couldn t fit into 1.0 but hope to put into future updates.
Starbound begins with players lost in space on a damaged ship, which leaves them forced to travel to the alien planet below in search of the supplies needed to fix it. Get that done, and the procedurally-generated universe is yours to explore. It offers seven playable races, drop-in/drop-out online co-op play, randomly generated dungeons and monsters, crafting, PvP, and all kinds of other stuff that makes the elongated development cycle a little easier to understand. It also has pleasingly light system requirements:
Minimum:
OS: Windows XP or laterProcessor: Core 2 DuoMemory: 2 GB RAMGraphics: 256 MB graphics memory and directx 9.0c compatible gpuDirectX: Version 9.0cNetwork: Broadband Internet connectionStorage: 3 GB available space
Recommended:
OS: Windows XP or laterProcessor: Core i3Memory: 4 GB RAMGraphics: Discrete GPU capable of directx 9.0cDirectX: Version 9.0cNetwork: Broadband Internet connectionStorage: 4 GB available space
You can find out more about the game at playstarbound.com.
Starbound’s [official site] formal launch has been a long time coming, but at long last, the sci-fi sandbox will be officially released on July 22.
Do you like space? Do you like wizards, also? Wow! You’re in luck!
Look out for staves and wands in your travels and become the cool space wizard* you were always destined to be! Staves are two-handed and come with secondary abilities, whereas wands are one-handed and can be dual-wielded!
They come pre-enchanted (or pre-SCIENCED?) with a variety of useful abilities. Heal your friends! Cast fire and brimstone and electric purple rain down upon your enemies! … or your friends. We’re not here to judge.
*Robe and Wizard Hat not included.
If you find that your weapon really needs an upgrade but you’re struggling to find anything conveniently in a chest at the end of a dungeon, there’s a shop for that now!
Seek out this shady salesman if you’re in the market for rare and powerful weapons! You’ll want to bring lots of pixels, though.
We’re firmly in the polishing-up phase now! This week we’ve added some more useful codexes to start of the game, and we’re making a lot of improvements to the UI.
Looking forward to showing you more shiny new stuff next week.
‘Til then, have a nice weekend! <3
There’s an Apex scientist in the Outpost developing techs, and he needs your help to test them out! If you can beat his obstacle courses, he’ll give you techs to take with you on your adventures.
You can also drop by his lab to upgrade techs if you have any tech cards handy, and later on you may be able to purchase portable tech stations so you can swap out your techs on the go!
Since Starbound’s launch in Early Access, everyone’s been asking us to implement an easier way to play Starbound with their friends. A huge portion of our emails are from people sort of mystified by the process of forwarding their ports and inviting people to join via their IP (for those reading this who are still mystified, there’s a guide on our wiki!).
In version 1.0, you will finally be able to join multiplayer Starbound servers via your Steam friends list. Hooray!
You’ll be able to choose whether or not your Steam friends can join your game via a check box in your Options menu. You can also choose whether to allow people to connect via your IP!
In this screenshot, ‘Multiplayer via Steam Friends’ is grayed out because I’m playing a dev build, but this feature should already work in the Nightly build. All of the usual caveats about Nightly apply.
‘Til next time!
<3
Happy Monday everyone!
This week (and for the latter bit of last week) we’re focusing on testing our internal build of Starbound! A handful of us have started playing through the whole game, and the remaining handful have gone to work fixing bugs we encounter along the way, tweaking whatever needs tweaking.
An important thing we’ve noticed is that we’re legitimately still having fun playing this game that we’ve spent several years of our lives working on! More fun than we’ve ever had playing it before, I’d say, which is a good sign.
We’ve also been catching and correcting plenty of bugs, which is encouraging! We are still adding things to Starbound here and there, but we expect testing and bug-fixing to be our main focus for the next few weeks. :)
‘Til next time! <3
Happy Friday, everyone!
It’s been a really productive week for finding and smashing bugs! We’ve also got a few people completing small-but-important pre-1.0 tweaks and features. Like this one!
It’s never made sense for NPCs to be cool with you stealing their furniture and smashing their pots – you’re not the Hero of Time, and those pots were expensive!
So now, if you’re caught stealing from an NPC, they’ll call the guards. Better work on your stealth!
Bonus interior design tip:
In our play testing sessions this week, Harriet and I discovered that a smoke machine placed in a shallow pool makes for a super awesome sauna. :D
Hello! GeorgeV here.
Today we’re showing you two things. The first is the Fluffalo!
Fluffalo are livestock that can be raised to produce various materials that can be used to craft useful items. They start out as eggs, which hatch into Baby Fluffalos. If you give your Baby Fluffalo specific foods, they’ll grow into one of these five variants of Fluffalo!
The second is a pair of detectors. The Cave Detector and the Ore Detector. These are both craftable fairly late in the game and will help with exploration and mining.
The Cave detector will help you find cave formations!
And the ore detector will help you find those pesky ores. There’s more around you than you realize!
That’s it for today. Until next time…
-GeorgeV
The books you find in Starbound aren’t essential to enjoying the game, but they do provide an interesting look at some of the characters, monsters and cultures you encounter! We’d love for people to enjoy reading them as much as we’ve enjoyed writing them, so we’ve been working on making the experience of reading them easier and prettier.
We posted about making more unique book covers a little while back, but the codex UI itself still made reading and sorting through your library difficult. So we’ve fixed it!
This is one of the more visual changes we’ve made this week, but we’ve been doing loads. We’ve completed another week of playtesting, fixing lots of bugs and making lots of quality-of-life fixes along the way. It’s been fun, but more importantly it feels like we’re making a lot of tangible progress each day. :)
‘Til next week! <3
Do you like space? Do you like wizards, also? Wow! You’re in luck!
Look out for staves and wands in your travels and become the cool space wizard* you were always destined to be! Staves are two-handed and come with secondary abilities, whereas wands are one-handed and can be dual-wielded!
They come pre-enchanted (or pre-SCIENCED?) with a variety of useful abilities. Heal your friends! Cast fire and brimstone and electric purple rain down upon your enemies! … or your friends. We’re not here to judge.
*Robe and Wizard Hat not included.
If you find that your weapon really needs an upgrade but you’re struggling to find anything conveniently in a chest at the end of a dungeon, there’s a shop for that now!
Seek out this shady salesman if you’re in the market for rare and powerful weapons! You’ll want to bring lots of pixels, though.
We’re firmly in the polishing-up phase now! This week we’ve added some more useful codexes to start of the game, and we’re making a lot of improvements to the UI.
Looking forward to showing you more shiny new stuff next week.
‘Til then, have a nice weekend! <3
There’s an Apex scientist in the Outpost developing techs, and he needs your help to test them out! If you can beat his obstacle courses, he’ll give you techs to take with you on your adventures.
You can also drop by his lab to upgrade techs if you have any tech cards handy, and later on you may be able to purchase portable tech stations so you can swap out your techs on the go!
Since Starbound’s launch in Early Access, everyone’s been asking us to implement an easier way to play Starbound with their friends. A huge portion of our emails are from people sort of mystified by the process of forwarding their ports and inviting people to join via their IP (for those reading this who are still mystified, there’s a guide on our wiki!).
In version 1.0, you will finally be able to join multiplayer Starbound servers via your Steam friends list. Hooray!
You’ll be able to choose whether or not your Steam friends can join your game via a check box in your Options menu. You can also choose whether to allow people to connect via your IP!
In this screenshot, ‘Multiplayer via Steam Friends’ is grayed out because I’m playing a dev build, but this feature should already work in the Nightly build. All of the usual caveats about Nightly apply.
‘Til next time!
<3
Happy Monday everyone!
This week (and for the latter bit of last week) we’re focusing on testing our internal build of Starbound! A handful of us have started playing through the whole game, and the remaining handful have gone to work fixing bugs we encounter along the way, tweaking whatever needs tweaking.
An important thing we’ve noticed is that we’re legitimately still having fun playing this game that we’ve spent several years of our lives working on! More fun than we’ve ever had playing it before, I’d say, which is a good sign.
We’ve also been catching and correcting plenty of bugs, which is encouraging! We are still adding things to Starbound here and there, but we expect testing and bug-fixing to be our main focus for the next few weeks. :)
‘Til next time! <3
Happy Friday, everyone!
It’s been a really productive week for finding and smashing bugs! We’ve also got a few people completing small-but-important pre-1.0 tweaks and features. Like this one!
It’s never made sense for NPCs to be cool with you stealing their furniture and smashing their pots – you’re not the Hero of Time, and those pots were expensive!
So now, if you’re caught stealing from an NPC, they’ll call the guards. Better work on your stealth!
Bonus interior design tip:
In our play testing sessions this week, Harriet and I discovered that a smoke machine placed in a shallow pool makes for a super awesome sauna. :D
Hello! GeorgeV here.
Today we’re showing you two things. The first is the Fluffalo!
Fluffalo are livestock that can be raised to produce various materials that can be used to craft useful items. They start out as eggs, which hatch into Baby Fluffalos. If you give your Baby Fluffalo specific foods, they’ll grow into one of these five variants of Fluffalo!
The second is a pair of detectors. The Cave Detector and the Ore Detector. These are both craftable fairly late in the game and will help with exploration and mining.
The Cave detector will help you find cave formations!
And the ore detector will help you find those pesky ores. There’s more around you than you realize!
That’s it for today. Until next time…
-GeorgeV
The books you find in Starbound aren’t essential to enjoying the game, but they do provide an interesting look at some of the characters, monsters and cultures you encounter! We’d love for people to enjoy reading them as much as we’ve enjoyed writing them, so we’ve been working on making the experience of reading them easier and prettier.
We posted about making more unique book covers a little while back, but the codex UI itself still made reading and sorting through your library difficult. So we’ve fixed it!
This is one of the more visual changes we’ve made this week, but we’ve been doing loads. We’ve completed another week of playtesting, fixing lots of bugs and making lots of quality-of-life fixes along the way. It’s been fun, but more importantly it feels like we’re making a lot of tangible progress each day. :)
‘Til next week! <3
Hello, and welcome to the new and improved Starbound website!
In preparation for the previously mentioned final approach to 1.0, we've taken some time to give the site a new coat of paint. So take a look around, and let us know what you think!
So, what's new with Starbound? Well, I think you'll all be excited to read that you'll soon be able to upgrade your Matter Manipulator in whichever way you see fit!
Do you focus all your modules early on towards maxing out the Power Generator? Or perhaps you'd find spreading your modules out on each area a more rewarding spend. The choice is now up to you in which order you focus your upgrades.
This feature is still a work in progress, but here's a look at the interface as it stands right now:
We've also got some some exciting news to share regarding Starbound on Xbox One! If you're attending EGX Rezzed in London this weekend, you'll be among the first to play an early build of Starbound on the Xbox One, via their new Game Preview program!
We're already receiving some sizeable interest at the ID@XBOX booth, so come and say hello!
That's all for today!
Hey, you! Have you ever thought about being a space bounty hunter?
I mean, obviously being a regular bounty hunter is all well and good, but if you stick space on the front of it... well, I'm sure there are statistically a lot more outlaws in the whole of space than there are here on Earth, right? Travel time might be an issue. There's quite a lot of travel. I suppose there are always downsides.
Anyway, now you can do that!
You may come across NPCs who are feeling a bit anxious about the presence of an infamous outlaw near their home. Go and take care of that and receive a nice bounty in return! Outlaws aren't as easy to fight as regular NPCs, and may even have a few tricks up their sleeves.
But who knows? Maybe Shadowy Goldtooth the dark knight is just a bit misunderstood! Maybe you could even be friends?
There are whispers of a seedy hidden dive bar at the Outpost frequented by penguin mercenaries...
It's rumored that if you do the bartender a favor, you'll be allowed to hire penguin mercenaries onto your ship crew rather than accumulating crew members by being nice and helping people.
... they're just rumors though, of course!
Hello, and welcome to the new and improved Starbound website!
In preparation for the previously mentioned final approach to 1.0, we've taken some time to give the site a new coat of paint. So take a look around, and let us know what you think!
So, what's new with Starbound? Well, I think you'll all be excited to read that you'll soon be able to upgrade your Matter Manipulator in whichever way you see fit!
Do you focus all your modules early on towards maxing out the Power Generator? Or perhaps you'd find spreading your modules out on each area a more rewarding spend. The choice is now up to you in which order you focus your upgrades.
This feature is still a work in progress, but here's a look at the interface as it stands right now:
We've also got some some exciting news to share regarding Starbound on Xbox One! If you're attending EGX Rezzed in London this weekend, you'll be among the first to play an early build of Starbound on the Xbox One, via their new Game Preview program!
We're already receiving some sizeable interest at the ID@XBOX booth, so come and say hello!
That's all for today!
Hey, you! Have you ever thought about being a space bounty hunter?
I mean, obviously being a regular bounty hunter is all well and good, but if you stick space on the front of it... well, I'm sure there are statistically a lot more outlaws in the whole of space than there are here on Earth, right? Travel time might be an issue. There's quite a lot of travel. I suppose there are always downsides.
Anyway, now you can do that!
You may come across NPCs who are feeling a bit anxious about the presence of an infamous outlaw near their home. Go and take care of that and receive a nice bounty in return! Outlaws aren't as easy to fight as regular NPCs, and may even have a few tricks up their sleeves.
But who knows? Maybe Shadowy Goldtooth the dark knight is just a bit misunderstood! Maybe you could even be friends?
There are whispers of a seedy hidden dive bar at the Outpost frequented by penguin mercenaries...
It's rumored that if you do the bartender a favor, you'll be allowed to hire penguin mercenaries onto your ship crew rather than accumulating crew members by being nice and helping people.
... they're just rumors though, of course!
After two years and change from a third in Early Access, Starbound is gearing up for its big launch. Patch 1.0 is "getting close" and incorporates a vast array of new features, some reworked returning features and the promise of Steam Workshop support for modding. However, Chucklefish is keen to stress that 1.0 is not the end—it'll be mechanically complete but the content will keep on comping.
Story takes the headline slot: "You are a Protector in training. The protectors belong to the Terrene Protectorate. An organisation formed on earth by humanity to protect and guide the universe towards peace. The story begins on earth, on your graduation day and quickly has you hurtling out into the stars."
Patch 1.0 will bring eight instanced missions ending in unique boss fights. Unlocking them requires some questing on your part, hunting for clues across the stars by exploring, talking to the natives and building your own colonies. Together it forms a "cohesive narrative".
Planets are set to become more diverse with the addition of multiple major biomes: expect to find the likes of volcanoes in jungles, alongside new dungeons, microdungeons and villages. Planets are also getting busier with the addition of new side quests and procedurally generated quests dispensed by NPCs with knowledge of their planet and its major landmarks.
Multiplayer is being greatly improved, utilising Steam invites instead of faffing around with server details to drop into friends' singleplayer games. If you prefer complete control, however, private servers are still an option.
And this isn't to mention the crafting, augmentation and pet taming overhauls, the optimisations, the return of hunger to a dedicated survival mode and a collection of brand new weapons. The update is huge, so here are the patch notes in all their glory.
