What do you get if you cross Minecraft with a space shooter? You get StarMade

Minecraft inspiring a new but similar game is nothing totally new – at this point there’s been more than a couple great spins on everyone’s favorite block-builder game, and that means new ones will have to stand out all the more. Well, StarMade is definitely a game which should turn some heads: it offers the creative flexibility that’s made building games enter a new golden age, but does so in a sci-fi/space-shooter setting, which happens to be one area that’s been sorely neglected for a while. It’s apparently free to try, with a full-upgrade being available for 3 dollars. The feature list is pretty enticing as well.

So what does StarMade offer up? Thankfully, that’s easy to answer!

• Explore: Explore space generated in real time around you
• Design: design you own ship or space station.
• Customize: create customized weapons, harvesting elements, shields and docking stations for your ship. Combine elements to groups to make your modules even more powerful.
• Multiplayer: full multi player: share control of your ship or design a ship together
• Destroy: destroy your enemies with your powerful weapons or just infiltrate an enemy ship. There already is a big arsenal of destructive modules: Missiles (normal, heat seeking and target chasing), Lasers, and Explosive modules that detonate on impact
• Salvage: salvage the ships of your fallen enemies to gain credits
• Physics: fully integrated modern physics engine for real box-on-box collisions
• Stealth: use radar jamming and cloaking modules for a surprise attack.
• Multiplatform: runs on windows, mac and linux
• Share: save, import & export your own ships as blueprints. You can upload your blueprints to any multi player server
• AI: fight your own creations alone or in coop mode
• Tutorial: interactive tutorial to learn the basics

The main site has more information, including presentation videos and tutorials, so be sure to give this one a look if you’d rather start salvaging and building things in space rather than in an anonymous fantasy world for a change.