Starbound is a fantastic little game by Chucklefish that I first picked up in its very early Early Access days 5 or so years ago. It's one that I've really enjoyed, clocking (as of today) a total of 830 hours of playtime in - most of which is without mods, as I find the vanilla game itself extremely fun.
In my time with this game, I've seen some huge changes. It's a different game today than it was in its Early Access days when it didn't even have a storyline! The last update was over a year ago, and it's definitely not receiving any more attention but, in my opinion, it doesn't need anything more.
At it's core - for those of you who haven't seen or heard of this game - it's a side-scrolling survival/crafting game, VERY similar to Terraria. Only, set in space, with a sprawling universe to explore and colonize.
And, as I eluded to earlier - there is a storyline and missions to complete towards an ending. In my years of playing, I've reached the final boss a few times, but I inevitably got nuked by it each time and in a state of frustration would go back to just dicking around building stuff on new worlds and expanding my self-appointed galactic empire.
Well, last week I finally broke that cycle and I Beat RUIN!
Ruin is technically a planet, and so to kill it you attack the Heart of Ruin.
As it turns out, when you drill into the heart of a planet and blow it up, it's pretty hard to escape alive. Such is the sacrifice heroes make.
NOT TODAY DEATH. HA HA FUCK YOUUUU.
And so we live again!After beating Ruin I realized there's an end-game event that I was completely unaware of and missing out on! So I set out to open some Ancient Vaults and upgrade my weapons to the final tier of weaponry. The bosses in these ancient vaults can be pretty challenging, but I have managed to beat them 3 or so times so far, and upgrade a handful of weapons.
Getting the kill makes it rain a sweet ancient currency!
You can use the ancient currency stuff - who's actual name I forget, but the purple stardust shit - to upgrade some weapons, as well as buy planet terraformers to change the biome of a planet to something you desire.
So I've been busy the last few days opening Vaults and upgrading weapons so I can make creating colonies on the most dangerous planets a little easier! There's still a lot to do too - The last update for the game introduced bounty hunting, which I've only barely touched on! And I'm working to upgrade and outfit my space-mech better too! AND I want to create my own Space Station - but that's all going to be stuff for future blog updates!
For a game I've already put 800+ hours into, there's still a ton of enjoyment I'm going to be able to squeeze out of this title! Oh, and since characters all share the same universe, I found that I can make new characters for the different races - FTL to my main character's home planet - and share some items to make the starting a little faster and easier. I think once I'm out of official content that is new to explore I'll make themed galactic empires for each character by making new colonies on various planets and just kind of RPing as if they were interacting. Might even spawn some stories as I get there... I guess we'll see!
Anyhow, that's it for my gaming update today! Stay well my friends!