What do you *love* about Starbound?

I see a lot of posts (read: nearly all that appear here) from people with complaints about Starbound. I want to note, most of these are valid complaints, and I have nothing against those posts -- feedback is important for a beta, and there are a good many I agree with. The game is only half-baked yet, obviously a lot of stuff is broken right now and the devs need to hear about it!

But many of us waited for a long time for this game. We were super hyped and excited for all the listed features and shiny bits, and there's a lot here to appreciate already.

Personally, one of the things I love about Starbound is the Avian race. My little blue birdy Bwee is so much fun to play, and adorable to look at (I'm going to remake him after every character wipe and play him forever. ♥)


(lookit his little face omigosh)

The art in general in Starbound is amazing. I've always adored pixel graphics, and the ones here are top notch. The music is beautiful. Speaking of music -- the fact that there are instruments you can find and play excites me way more than it probably should, haha!

As far as gameplay goes, I really love exploring and building, but that's probably a given considering the nature of the game. Still, being able to go to a new planet and be super curious about what I'll find makes it feel just a little bit like Christmas every time.

So what do you love about this game? Those of you already addicted, what keeps you coming back?

 

Two things are keeping me hooked on this game - the beautiful world and the engaging combat.

The environments on this game are very well done, as well as the characters. There are so many cool kinds of environments. It's just exciting to explore every new planet and find whats there. And a lot of them drop a lot of lore hints which adds further depth to the world.

The combat also keeps me having a lot of fun. While there are clearly balance issues, the core fundamentals are there. You have flying enemies that you have to work to jump and slice at or to potshot ranged attacks at. In an environment where you hit as hard as the monsters, its a struggle to see if you can outwit your enemy and slash them into a combo first. It's very fun and I'm excited to see how it'll improve.

 

The music.

Oh. My. God. The. Music.

 

This!

 

Oh, agreed on all points here. Lore is a big deal to me; the fact that there's so much that adds flavor to the world is just wonderful. And the combat is really fun. I have this little method of ... *sneaksneaksneak* up to a monster, and if it stays there and doesn't try to bite me, it lives and we're both happy. If the monster comes after me, I squeak and flee and swipeswipeswipe and jump around and I feel super cool when I do some kind of jumpy move and kill the monster at the same time like a badass ninja. >.>

...theeen there are the times when a monster nibbles me and I fly halfway across the screen and die, and I just have to laugh.

 

Both the music and the combat I love.

It's also very entertaining to see how, slowly and bit by bit, the combat is starting to shape up from something "technically functional" into something enjoyable. Too many people seem to be logging in to post and post pure rant about the difficulty of the combat and missing the point that the beta IS for people to -test- the gameplay so balance can be adjusted and bugs be fixed and meaningful suggestions implemented.

I also actually enjoy the simplicity of building, how I can build foreground walls with a left click and then switch to background walls in as simple a fashion as switching to the right click. Without mentionning the possibility to actually both paint a large area of block, or do very small detailed single blocks by as simply as holding shift. I love to use the single-block brush for exterior walls then switch back to the larger 2x2 block brush when I want to apply background walls over an area.

Plus, the tidbits I'm finding myself discovering more and more as I explore, especially even moreso as the devs keep adding a little more content every patch. I must say kudos for a small team being able to put not only so much effort in the game, but so much time than they have. Few people seem to realizes that people like Tiy have been spending more time working on a single patch non-stop than they personally spend awake in a single day.

 

I'm hardly an "expert" on these sort of games, but I have to say one thing I really liked and found very intuitive was just the simple mechanic that I have one mouse button to interact with the foreground, and another to interact with the background - at least when placing or mining blocks. I know it took me... much longer in Terraria to realize I even could interact with the background, and found having to craft a totally different type of block for the "wall" to be counter-intuitive to me. I've also played a bit of Darkout and found their controls really difficult to grok.

So yeah - beta, and some things aren't polished yet. But I'm looking at a really nice art aesthetic and music, and clearly these guys are putting a lot of care and dedication into the game (which is always good.) Seeing the really basic foundational gameplay mechanics working really well for me without having to go read a wiki entry first is something I'd consider to be a pretty good sign that they're on the right track with a lot of these things.

 

- The exploration (finding those amazing dungeons that are so diverse)

-The building ( such a variety of options and vanity items + a much nicer building system then most games )

 

The music, most definitely. That's what I love most about the game right now.

Also, I seem to be the only one actually amused by the MurderBirds™. Hilarious unintended consequences are one of my favorite things about beta testing.

 

The first time I got killed by one I was kinda like

And then the times afterward I was kinda like

 

Hahaha! This, so much this.

Edited to add: It's a fun kind of frustration, because then I'm determined to wipe out every one of those birds and there's epic battle music in my head when one shows up.

 

I absolutely love the complexity of the Lore put into this sandbox game, and all the general uniqueness that is Starbound.

 

Agreed, I can't wait to play the final release with the full quest line!

 

dem Glitch doe

 

There's already a really impressive storyline with the 225 codexes implemented.

I have a post buried in the complaints with all of them.

 

After the patch dropped last night, one of my friends on our private server ended up spawn camped by a flock of MurderBirds™ at the very first world while the rest of us ran and hid in the caves.

 

Lore, mainly, though I like the music, too. I'll judge the combat when its finished.

Exploration, too. Can't really into building tho.

 

I love how the music dies down as you get lower into a planet. It gets creepy.

I love exploring and finding structures deep underground.

I love finding new ores for the first time. ie "Sweet more plat. Wait, WTF IS THAT GREEN SH*T?!?"

 

I want an option to turn the music on permanently so I don't end up with silence down deep. =(

 

I love the soul of the game.

It's sandbox, but a VERY powerful role playing background.
This game has character.
What I want now though is a punchier more satisfying combat system. But I can understand it now that it's in beta. But please, if I find a stone totem with glowing scriptures, I expect the screen to shake and the audio have a deep thud that echoes if I do critical hits.