1st December - Bioluminescence

Hey there! Things have been relatively quiet on the blog recently, but very busy in the office. Lately I’ve spent most of my time helping kyren improve the way we configure biomes and planetary layers. This is necessary for ocean planets, but will also facilitate a lot of other cool stuff in the future. I’ll be able to talk more about that when it’s closer to finished. This evening I took a little break to put Supernorn’s bioluminescent plants in the game. They’ll be getting their own biome soon, but I thought they looked nice enough to warrant a screenshot of the progress:

2nd December - Here and there and everywhere!

Despite repeatedly getting sidetracked to tackle other tasks, we now have over 120 functional food items and recipes that the player can discover in their travels, and that’s just in tiers 1-4! You will typically receive one or two basic recipes upon collecting a new ingredient, and then you can earn more by spending some time preparing these items. Even the most unassuming recipe may eventually lead you to something particularly potent, so if you want the best food buffs you’re going to want to spend some time with your cooking table.

One of the more unusual concoctions I’ve particularly enjoyed playing with is a drink that imbues the player with great bounciness. When under the effects of this buff, you are completely immune to falling damage, your jump power increases by 25% and you bounce when you impact any surface. It can be a bit hard to control if you’re in a particularly rough patch of terrain, but if you can time a jump the moment you hit the ground, you can bounce higher and higher. This is especially fun when combined with the double jump tech!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0KlrpuEo0eI

Combat practical? Perhaps not. But it sure is fun!

One year later...

Happy Anniversary!

A year ago today, we launched Starbound on Steam Early Access to more love and support than we could ever have anticipated.

Starbound’s development has had its ups and downs (as all game development cycles do!), but we’ve been able to work far more efficiently together since settling into our little office space. We’ve been super hard at work on a very large update that changes and expands upon the progression system and it’s nearly ready for unstable.

If you’ve been keeping track of our updates and the nightly build, you’ll have seen just how much has changed since the last stable update. If not, never fear! In lieu of 10+ pages of text outlining all the changes, we’ll be posting a trailer next week highlighting all the biggest features we’ve added to the game. In the meantime, Katzeus at Starbounder has neatly summarized most of the changes here.

We really can’t thank you enough for your continued patience, feedback, supportive messages and contributions to the community. :) I know a lot of you have been waiting aaaages for a stable update before diving back into the game, but I think you’ll find the wait worth it. :D