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.