Keen and I bought into a 4-pack for some game a long time ago. Eventually I forgot what it was called altogether. Every now and then I’d ask him something like, “Remember that 4-pack thing we bought? Did that ever come out?” and the answer was usually an “I don’t know.” Then one day Keen says, “Hey, remember that 4-pack space game? The beta comes out tomorrow.” Now you have a little behind-the-scenes insight into the goings-on of our operation.

So anyway, the game is actually called Starbound and if I had to sum it up briefly I’d say that It’s basically Terraria in space. There’s a lot more to it than that but it’s the easiest way to get the point across. It looks very similar to Terraria and plays quite similarly as well. Dig holes, craft stuff, put up blocks in the fore and background, etc. I don’t know what game did this art style and gameplay-type first since there seem to be several of them but you get the idea.

The really exciting part about Starbound is the ability to travel to different planets, solar systems, and quadrants. There are several different planet types like forest, snow/ice, arid, jungle, desert, and moon. You aren’t just stuck on the first world they drop you on. Actually, they don’t drop you on a world at all. (more…)