why starbound LOST.

Starbound you remember Starbound right developed and published by chuckle Fish Games Starbound was an enormously successful game within the 2D open world survival craft genre that Terraria created although it's become another forgotten indie game at its release it competed with the Behemoth of Terraria and offered a unique experience that was praised by critics and players alike however as time passed players realized that they could only be one Terraria and Starbound fell Into Obscurity but why Starbound was unique to ter area in a few key ways to distinguish itself as a new title most importantly it came with an overarching story that drove new players to complete various tasks to progress further in the game sacrificing the Limitless options that Terraria provides for a less daunting more head holding experience moreover it has more than one world the ship you have is your key to exploring the vast open world Universe you find yourself in fuel becomes a vital Resource as you hop from planet to planet discovering the different flora and FAA and the occasional research facility most other elements are seamlessly brought over from Terraria and molded to fit the world that Starbound exists in and then of course as the story progresses the end game deviates more and more from terraria's boss Focus resolution to a more traditional narrative conclusion that I won't spoil the concept of the game Terraria with an infinite Universe obviously captured players the game had considerable hype during development and garnered significant financial support on the humble store after ra in over a million do in 2013 the game then launched later that year in Early Access and by 2016 it had been fully released as of December 2016 the game had sold 2.5 million copies to say the reviews were good would be an understatement it was praised by critics being granted an 81 out of 100 on Metacritic marginally behind Terraria 83 as well as many other reviews seldom falling below 80% players too adored the game often comparing it to Terraria but concluding it was the better game between the two because of its additional content and quality of life features what's more exciting was the game state of development players would Express excitement for the game's potential at the time of release and subsequent months stbound saw more success than Terraria in terms of Steam Reviews which is hard to imagine today as it was in Early Access it saw incredibly frequent updates posting a weekly update Roundup from August 2014 until December on the 23rd of June in 2016 the game had officially released into .0 but somewhere along the way it lost its Allure Terraria had retaken its spot at top the throne and Starbound was struggling to re entice players into its boundless worlds and if we ignore the enormous Spike during the Steam summer sale in 2019 where the game could be used to get massive discounts the game has since seen no Resurgence and likely won't as the Bounty Hunter update spelled the end of Star bals Development so something clearly went wrong here the game was seemingly enough to differentiate it from its parent title Terraria however as Terraria popularity grew star bounds dwindled there's a few reasons why that [Music] is you don't have to be a genius to figure out that Starbound was intended to be a direct competitor with Terraria the game came primarily from the mind of Finn Bryce who worked on Terraria during early stages of development as a graphic designer the game had a fair amount of hype at the time and blog saw frequent progress updates that would be met with much excitement in the community on release as we already saw the game was compared to Terraria but with infinite content and a much more satisfying story but this desire to be liken to Terraria unfortunately spelled its demise Terraria struggled to gain mainstream popularity for a long period of time due to its polarizing art style although it's almost C knowledge at this point that games with better gameplay typically tend to outlast games with better art at the time time one of starbound's major selling points was its upgrade in graphics certainly it does come down to personal choice but in most instances Starbound does have a nicer aesthetic but it's not actually unique in any way sure it might look a bit better than Terraria but by the time of release people were used to terraria's art and star bounds tried too hard to emulate it and ended up appearing off rather than better the art style Starbound chose was so incredibly similar that people had trouble seeing it as a different game and thus didn't B with it you can emulate art but emulation rarely results in Ingenuity and because of that starbound's art was not nearly as Innovative as it needed to be to really establish itself as a lone title and nor was its gameplay the survival craft genre can only have so many primary mechanics especially when you're constricted to a 2d view but other games have managed to incorporate different types of gameplay effectively sure you fly to other planets but on each planet you're doing a similar thing that you're doing on your home planet mining for resource resources and building what works incredibly well is when developers take Survival Craft and add a new unique element that not only changes the aesthetic but ends up having Ripple effects across the entire game raft was not designed to be a Minecraft competitor it was designed to be a survival game on a raft in the middle of the ocean rather than on land this then changes how you get food water and resources it also introduces necessity to players to grow their raft and focuses more on Survival as food and water are naturally rare in the middle of the ocean Starbound is for lack of a better phrase Terraria with interplanetary travel that gameplay element is cool in isolation but it doesn't end up having a knock on effect with any other aspect of gameplay even though far World Pioneers has done incredibly poorly the focus on Colony management was undoubtedly enough of a distinction where it was no longer seen purely as a Terraria clone although it's likely to be abandoned due to the poor reception the concept itself has had far more potential potential simply due to the deviation from the genre standards that it took and the new gameplay elements it could introduce and this is not to say that Starbound is inherently a bad game I'm sure if it was the first game in the genre it would have been praised for its Innovation and expansive universe but it wasn't the first game in its genre and it clearly took a lot of mechanics from Terraria furthermore in order to distinguish itself from Terraria it dled down some of the most renowned parts of Terraria like its boss fights and intricate worlds additionally it has a story the idea of a Sandbox game having a story was quite notable and it saw conflicting reception I personally didn't think it worked here we get into opinion but I don't think it makes sense for the game to present itself so similar to Terraria and not expect to get backlash for having a linear Story one of the best parts of Terraria was its freedom and with Starbound you're immediately guided step by step towards the end goal granted it's far from handholding but but the fact that it exists at all is disheartening imagine how much more exciting it would have been to arrive on a planet and figure out how to fix your spaceship before launching and discovering how many planets there are and the sheer number of choices you have ultimately it's likening to Terraria was probably the primary cause of its downfall as it failed to provide anything new to the genre and ended up competing with an already established fan favorite seldom do new games outgrow old games of the same genre unless they make considerable changes far more than a new coat of paint and some miscellaneous mechanics and it's so unfortunate to be so belittling towards a game that clearly offers satisfying and new gameplay but the nuance and Novelty of the gaml was lost under its simple [Music] exterior I think we all remember no man's sky on large over 18 quintilian planets but every one was the same the way no man Sky generation worked was by using pein noise to project a pseudo random terrain across an entire planet then populates said planet with flora and FAA created through selecting various designs and stitching them together the problem with that is that there are not enough things changed between each planet and they all ended up feeling like similar collections of land masses with odd-looking animals and sparse Flora the actual biomes upon each planet would be the same across the entire planet and be incredibly similar to the generation of other planets it's quite easy to see how this exploration can be incredibly dull because players were promised a new experience with each planet but given the same Planet over and over with little variation and thus little incentive to explore the Allure of No Man's sky was its boundless generation that would provide the space travel that most of us likely won't see in our lifetime to realize that would be not only a phenomenal game but an impressive Tech Innovation that proves the potential of creative programming and design and with time it became that but the sheer let down of the final product immortalized the game as having one of the worst launchers of all time with one of the most inspiring comeback stories unfortunately for Starbound not only did it have the difficulties of procedural generation to deal with but it also had to compete with terraria's notoriously intricate world creating many randomly generated biomes and considering them a planet is one thing but adding dungeons Secrets bosses and resources to them proved a difficult task if you need a certain item from the ocean in Terraria you move to the far left or far right of the world if you need an item from the jungle you can locate the jungle either above or below ground if you need an item from anywhere it's locatable somewhere within the vast World it doesn't need any other planet because it already contains a multitude of biomes and experiences packed tightly together if you need an item or to progress the story in Starbound you do need to go to another planet sure but the planet is really one biome spread across its entirety granted the amount of biomes in Starbound does outnumber Terraria however each planet doesn't really feel like a planet because typically planets are not only diverse from each other but have varied flora and FAA within it I mean we live on planet Earth we have deserts forests jungles volcanoes caves oceans lakes rivers Plains mountains Etc although Earth is just one planet it's not just thousands and thousands of kilometers a bush or forest or any one environment planets without life are far more prevalent in our universe but in Star bounds many inhabited planets are still that same single Bome for a planet to support life it must have at least some ecosystems that vary across the planet unlike the many gas giants and floating rocks that offer nothing new the way landscapes it created is again really constrictive because not only do you suffer from the same limitations as no man's sky but that's then projected onto to 2D which makes the world feel much smaller enormous unscalable mountains look fantastic in no man's sky but are just annoying in Starbound which is why they're far and few in between your sense of scale is never overwhelmed as it should be when you're presented by so many planets moving from planet to planet feels no different from moving from pylon to pylon in Terraria and it's all well in good for me to critique starbound's World Generation while offering no alternative but I can assure you that there would have been better but likely more difficult ways to create better and grander worlds with more unique creatures there's a developer called Rik the comos who has some absolutely phenomenal videos on procedural monsters and how he manages to create General Frameworks for each animal class with a system similar to this in place but projected onto starbound's 2D World Not only would you get far more variation than collaging a few predetermined skeleton parts but you'd also add a unique style to the game and be able to play off that Starbound could have done with far more diverse biome generation where rather than relying on pre-made trees and Flora they could have done procedurally grown plants under different conditions to not only make the plants aesthetically coherent with the biome but fitting with the humidity temperature population life forms and all other factors the game's focus wasn't on procedural generation it was on the story but that makes their choice to make their generation somewhat lackluster confusing because the infinite planets was a major selling point caves of cud does really impressive World Generation where it simulates entire civilizations histories and biomes every time the player opens a new game players created their own story and truly experienced a unique Universe in which they had ultimate Freedom the game's Graphics certainly alienates most potential players including myself but the framework beneath is without a doubt a masterclass in procedural generation and it extends far far more than what Starbound and indeed no man's Sky have done so here we can see Starbound suffers from the No Man's Sky problem promising infinite worlds but delivering planets with little variation and quickly repetitive gameplay the game could have been far better had it conformed to more handcrafted world with procedural generation to cut down on development time you need to remember that Starbound is a story game and fulfilling quests by jumping from similar planet to similar Planet turns quickly from a curious journey to a [Music] burden because Starbound is a story game once completing the game you feel satisfaction and likely aren't very inclined to revisit there is post-end game content but that is mainly traveling from planet to planet on bounty hunter missions with the same Weaponry in armor and little player progression not very exciting the game also has a little too much grind during its story so to continue that isn't exactly appealing the story itself isn't short and it'll probably take you a little over 24 hours to reach the final boss in my opinion that's more than enough content for what you're paying for and to be honest Terraria doesn't offer much post Moon Lord content either it's probably a briefer game experience if you know what you're doing with about 20 hours of content up to Moon Lord for beginners who use Wiki to assist them but then why do people keep playing Terraria so the first reason is the pre-end game content is more varied in Starbound you don't really have different builds you move from best weapon to best weapon and it makes relatively little difference whether that's a sword throwing weapon bow or whatever else in Terraria your build won't only determine your weapon but also your trinkets potions armor and play style this means there's more variety in each playr you do the second reason people keep playing Terraria is because it takes longer to complete all achievements the average Leisure player of Terraria will take drastically longer as there's more Avenues to distract you this leads us to the third reason building in Terraria is a slightly better process than in Starbound you have more types of blocks more building Utilities in the form of Trinkets and potions and it's probably what you're used to people make incredibly impressive build in Starbound but Terraria system is more refined and familiar and because of that you tend to see far more Terraria builds than Starbound builds Terraria also now has far more difficulty options giving players more ability to customize the challenge of the game after you've played through once you might feel inspired to go back and test your skills on a harder difficulty with a different player build and then the most notable reason people keep playing Terraria is the absurdly active modding Community vanilla Terraria is already a fine game but with massive mods like Calamity and overhaul your playthrough could be drastically extended with thousands of new items hundreds of new enemies and many new bosses the base game is so good and so easy to expand on that people clearly love creating amazing new boss battles and player classes to create a drastically more in-depth experience Starbound developers well aware of the massive potential for modding created a framework with modding in mind the game Steam page proudly States Starbound has been built from the ground up to be multiplayer and easily modable you have the tools to make the universe your own and mod ify the game to suit your play style add new items races Planet types Dungeons and quests the possibilities are Limitless suffice to say this didn't really happen there are many mods for Starbound certainly but none as elaborate or gigantic as Terraria I'd say this is likely due to a few reasons Starbound Story made it hard to add elements to the game pre-end game because new story elements would have to coh here with the greatest story which is an incredibly difficult feat to do without being out of place it also meant that all added items would have to fit after one unlock and before another because you would seldom encounter certain items too early or too late in Starbound in its effort to be a linear story as opposed to Terraria where you could pretty much get any item at any time defined by a few broad time periods like pre- hard mode pre-plant Tera and pre moonlord and speaking of Terraria why would modders spend the time porting Terraria mods over to Starbound when they already had a perfectly viable game to mod and an established collection of praise mods and that's what it would have been poting mods over because the gameplay was so similar that adding items to Starbound meant that likely already been added to Terraria or would also work in Terraria the attempt to compete with Terraria comes back to bite them because they provided a great modding framework that was pretty much unused due to the game's core gameplay lacking any Innovation hence lacking any reason to mod over Terraria now there was a very successful mod for a brief period of time but most mods are quality of life changes rather than major content additions or anything that could encourage more playthroughs of the game or extended periods of time in endgame because of the weaker moing scene and linear Story the game doesn't offer much replayability which is fine but pitting itself against Terraria turned it from a good story game to a bad sandbox game and now I feel like we need to understand truly why Starbound tried so hard to steal Terraria audience [Music] so we've already established that Finn Bryce creator of Starbound worked on Terraria during its development now around 4 years ago 2019 former developers began to speak up and discuss their exploitation these allegations were first made in 2016 but didn't see nearly as much publicity as they would years later after the topic was reignited by a game designer Damon Reese starting from age 16 he worked hundreds of hours on Starbound without being paid a single scent this opened up the floodgates to a larger discussion regarding the amorality surrounding star bounds development he and many other contributors Bryce labeled the unpaid workers as contributors were young excited developers writers and artists who were willing to do unpaid labor for the sake of gaining experience and exposure being their first project in the industry they were unaware of how exploitative this relationship is both in game development and arts in general although the game had sold over a million copies in its first month chucklefish management continued to use these naive contributors in a quote from Ro Watson an artist who after some time did negotiate a paid contract he States Finn was great at letting people assume things so he could pull the rug out from under them he'd be enamored with whoever was the new contributor and they' assume that meant that'd get an offer for a contract but it had just never come as soon as the pre-order blew up and people could see how much the game was making he told the contributors I didn't promise you anything and you signed contracts saying you wouldn't expect payment so I'm not obligated to do anything Not only was this exploitative it was also incredibly manipulative furthermore Bryce was known for creating an uncomfortable work environment often initiating inappropriate sexual discussions the 2016 allegation contain a statement alluding to these very incidents Bryce found excuses to add non-developers to the dev chat usually random girls that hang around and then usually leave because of the circumstances I'm not permitted to talk about this statement is incredibly Sinister and insinuates that perhaps Bryce made inappropriate advances or comments to these unknown women other unidentifiable developers have made claims relating to the transience of workers as they came to the realiz I ation that they W going to be paid for their hard work and made way for new workers at the time of this new surfacing many were confused as to the issue at hand it saw many comments rationalizing Bryce's actions by discussing the fact that these developers were aware that they were working for free and could have just asked for payment furthermore they voluntarily provided content to the game and signed contracts dictating the payment or lack thereof to come of their efforts what these comments fail to understand is the demographic that Bryce typically targeted an anonymous Reddit user sums it up quite well I would like to note that this wasn't 20 30 40 whatever year old developers they exploited they specifically went after people who were 14 15 16 and usually female convincing them that if they work for them they'll get a job in the industry that is known to be rough on them for both their age and their gender this wasn't just someone being an idiot this was child labor and exploitation on a mass scale Not only was the situation dire but it also remains relatively mysterious in particular Bryce's true engagement in inappropriate behavior however it can be said for certain that this story surfacing may have killed all future updates the game had in store I don't think it's any coincidence that the last update came out in the very same year as this news this almost felt like the final nail in the coffin for Starbound its fans active in the modern Community but ever decreasing and it's pretty sad I'd say considering the amount of passion and Crea ity that went into the game is all but forgotten in Indie popular culture and now I think it's time we talk [Music] about finally we understand why Starbound lost the battle with Terraria and we also see that this battle was fated from the start Starbound is a completely different game under the hood I wouldn't call it an amazing game but it was definitely pretty good despite a few plot holes the story was a perfect way to give you objectives while you traveled and the planets you'd find could have huge ancient buildings or creepy dangerous facilities or thriving little communities rather than discovering for the sake of it you're looking for something which gives you so much more incentive to try one more planet or really delve to the depths of where you are before giving up and moving on and what's more the game has so much life in it there are seven different playable races in the game each with their own Cosmetics armor weapons items Villages dungeons home planets quests characters and law there are even eight additional non-playable races with their own law and structures that players will encounter through their expeditions the story guides you towards various boss fights and artifacts that give you the ability to defeat the final boss that broke out from interdimensional prison to destroy the entire universe there's mechs to play with and you've got your spaceship to customize and make your own sure progression is linear unlike the scattered progression of terrarian but can we stop comparing this game to Terraria now Starbound lost a battle it shouldn't have started to begin with it's barely a survival sandbox it's much more an RPG with a heavy focus on Exploration with sandbox inspiration it's a Sci-Fi Journey that takes you from planet to planet to discover ancient ruins long lost artifacts and meticulous law written by passionate writers your main goal is not survival your main goal is to save the universe and the game fumbled the bag majorly by leaving far too much room for comparison Starbound lost not because it was the worst game it lost because it was a different game with major issues in development virtually killing any chances of Revival the game remains a cool experience that doesn't quite capture my personal affection it's certainly not as good as people praise it to be and on the opposite end of the spectrum it's not as bad as people suggest it falls into the general category of a good indie game that potentially had the opportunity to become much more if you have watched to the end thanks heaps this has been my biggest project so far and I'd love to hear your thoughts in the comments subscribe if you're interested in more videos about video games and like the video if you like the video I hope to see you in the next one see you

Channel: progress

Views: 521,835

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Id: ItHZySmmM7I

Length: 25min 19sec (1519 seconds)

Published: Sat Oct 07 2023