Why Starbound Failed

Starbound is a space exploration game that was supposed to be the next Terraria - but it failed to reach it's fullest potential on nearly every single level and caused the reputation of Chucklefish to permanently decline.
Let's talk about Why Starbound Failed.
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[@robokast]

Enjoy this video Check out my latest uploading talking about the rise and fall of the Saints Row series: kzbin.info/www/bejne/e2XFnKp-f86daZI

[@elijah-jones-inbox]

I liked the game. I played it with my boys and it was pretty good. I didn't follow the development or anything like that, so for me it was just a game I played.

[@Sprose09]

hello i know you probably wont take this to heart but i wanted to write out my thoughts on the negative side of this video. below is the ramblings of a tired neckbeard at 3am in terms of the content it was an enjoyable listen however the editing on this video is kinda awful ngl, i think you need to cut down on certain sound effects (camera flash/whoosh) and visual effects (bright flash during transitions, fast moving text on white background and the wavy text boxes) as with how much these things are used it creates quite the sickening experience the sound effects just need less however you should probably completely remove the bright flashes and wavy text, in an informative video essay like this one the viewer is trying to gain knowledge yet the flashes destroy our eyes (people use dark mode for a reason, maybe make it duller?) and the wavy text boxes are completely unreadable unless paused (also as someone with motion sickness they were rather awful to look at) finally the text on white paper. again this hurts the eyes but more importantly rather than one word at a time you should just do the entire sentence as the way you have done it is extremely annoying to look at, i understand you want to keep attention but we don't need subway surfers in the corner of an educational video. this technique is used to make a certain sentence/word pop out from the rest in order to outline its importance (such as a title) but with the way you've done it it feels like you saw it in another video and thought it looked cool without truly understanding what makes it work idk i'm probably just sensitive since its 3am or maybe i'm just not ready for zoomer editing either way i'm writing this comment because i thought the content of the video itself was really good it just felt like a shame that i had to stop watching and only listen to the last half

[@zarnox3071]

One of the saddest parts to me was when they completly gutted the original story and lore, only to replace it with the most generic sci-fi plot you've ever seen.

[@JoJo-gt7ty]

What was the original story like? The final version being a padded fetch quest is beyond boring and tiresome

[@wasolaso1840]

@@JoJo-gt7ty I remember that player character of each race had their own reasons to become an adventurer. Human was fleeing from the destruction of Earth, Avian is an atheist in a fundamentalist society, Apex is a dissident from the oppressive government, etc. Now they are pretty much have the exact same start

[@Fierce0Deity0Link]

@@JoJo-gt7ty species also had different relations to each others. Robots and Plant people went along pretty well, while Plants and Fish people hated each other, it felt like there were some intergalatic political and societal dynamics going on. It was overall a lot darker for sure.

[@Gobeman]

Preach. The fact I had to use a modpack to even have the MOUNTAINS OF CONTENT that got gutted with the lore change.... I preferred the early access builds over the final product I was left flappergasted when i finally YEARS LATER after the early access began playing it... Wondering where certain item was. The lack of random prefabs of towns and dungeons.. Only to realize they had gutted so much for the new things

[@zercon_]

dying light 2 incident

[@diswouter428]

man first time hearing the name starbound in years

[@Joe-dy7bb]

Seeing the logo in the thumbnail activated all the dusty synapses in my brain like I was meeting an old friend I haven't seen in 20 years. I completely forgot this game existed.

[@cara-seyun]

*checks date starbound came out “8 years ago?!?”

[@scorpixel1866]

@@cara-seyun That's only the release. The good versions of beta date back to 2014.

[@KnightQQ]

Same here! Anyone wanna set-up a Discord server and play together? Could be fun!

[@heliogonzalezsanchez8227]

​@@KnightQQwhy would anyone play a dead game? You would be better off playing terraria

[@Akatsuki590]

I was a moderator on a Starbound multiplayer server during beta through 2017, and one of my favorite moments was at the 1.0 launch: a ton of players sent reports to us that, when they launched the game, they would see the chucklefish logo and then the game would hard crash. It took a few days before that glitch was patched, but I will never forget the feeling that the glitch summarized our experience with Starbound: chucklefish laughing at its playerbase as their game went up in smoke.

[@vgtgoat]

I remember when a friend and I went back to Starbound on a multiplayer server a few years ago and an invisible mod messed with us for a few minutes then gave us some goodies. That was a funny experience

[@joshuadeneumoustier8523]

I vividly remember this happening to me.

[@spaceranger13theboi]

whats actually really funny is that this still happens to me i think, a while ago the game would boot, the logo would come up, and the game would just stop working, i dont know why. now it doesn't even boot and nothing i did fixed it, not that i mattered, i didnt like the game anyways.

[@Dobbgob]

@@spaceranger13theboi uninstalling and reinstalling works

[@Cutesune]

I made a mod for Starbound that got super popular in the early days of Starbound (The Avali player race) and a lot of people kept asking if they could be added officially; though the clunky design didn't really make that feasible IMHO, their design was always intended as a proof of concept to bend the game engine in ways it wasn't designed for and so had a lot of issues. At some point, a little after the game resumed development, Brice approached me over Skype about whether I'd be willing to transfer Chucklefish the exclusive IP for them and also help in their implementation in game. By this point though I'd mostly abandoned the project as Chucklefish had been so slow to implement important code hooks on their end, combined with it's seemingly stalled development, had made me think they'd probably given up on the game. Obviously, the first question I asked is how much I'd receive, given he wanted both my labor and the IP rights. His response was basically "You'd be getting exposure in a major title, which is pay enough!", needless to say the conversation ended there and then. I was not shocked to learn some years later that he'd also approached others in the community with similar offers, and had absolutely screwed them over in the process. I'm glad I didn't take the offer; under Creative Commons people have since proliferated the Avali to countless other platforms and games through spin off creations. It's always a pleasant surprise to see them pop up years later in unexpected places.

[@_motho_]

i seem these little suckers crop up everywhere man. EVERYWHERE

[@NahItsLAN]

Yo I absolutely loved the Avali race, I played Avali in almost every new run of Starbound. Thank you for your work on such an awesome addition to the game! I’m sorry to hear about what happened with Chucklefish, but it’s real indicative of why the game failed honestly.

[@scaper12123]

You're the Avali guy? That's awesome! Glad you kept them Creative Common

[@Kinsect101]

Shoot I didn't know you made the Avali race mod I'm a fan of it alongside it's many add-on mods for it ^^

[@PinkMawile]

Bad management was what really killed it. I remember when they had cool temperature mechanics, only to replace it with pass/fail environment upgrades.

[@rrai1999]

Whenever they removed that was the games death knell. My friends all used to play it and love it and we loved the open ended exploration. Shoehorning the story in made all of them lose interest.

[@ageishyena3035]

This. I haven't actually clicked play yet, but I think the investors or whatnot didn't like the concept out of spite, so they killed it. Much like the directors of a certain movie did the same (the original mario bros movie with bob hodskins and whatnot)

[@DirtyDerg]

This game could've been good if they didn't have shit progression, combat and digging/placement mechanics that felt like an arthritic 70 year old left out to die on a tanning bed.

[@Filipokerface]

@@DirtyDerg THAT'S GOT TO BE THE MOST MOST SPECIFIC AND ACCURATE THING I'VE EVER HEARD ANYONE SAY

[@DirtyDerg]

@@Filipokerface The only good reason you'd pay for the game is to play the porn mods. That's it. Even then I wouldn't give them money, pirate the fuckin thing.

[@naonuk1743]

You forgot to mention that the game is singleplayer yet has entity and enemy lag. Like a mob is charging at you, you kill it and it still hits you because even dead it keeps charging.

[@micmacha]

But it's... not single player. I network game it all the time. They had non-Steam networking support very early on, you can find videos here on KZbin. Who told you it was single player?

[@lordmarshmal_0643]

@@micmacha I mean, you _can_ play it single-player but I feel like in this case it might be doing the Minecraft thing of having an internal server to handle some stuff

[@sosig6445]

@@lordmarshmal_0643 games do this because you either essentially build 2 identical games, (one single player, and one multiplayer) wich is as you can guess twice the work. or you set it up in a way that single player is just your own internal server so you don't need to constantly develop EVERY SINGLE feature twice. This isn't a bad thing usually, unless the game has certain optimisation issues.

[@RoseWhitmore]

@@sosig6445 i can tell you with ease, having 2 identical games is not twice the work. might need some things changed, sure, but you absolutely dont have to do everything twice from scratch. i dont really think you know what you are talking about, at all

[@pilsnerd420]

@@lordmarshmal_0643 A lot of games actually do this including Half-Life

[@Drakonus_]

Let's not forget the fact that Finn Bryce used to work on Terraria as a sprite artist, and after doing some scummy(too long of a tangent to explain) stuff behind the scenes, he got kicked out of Re-Logic and founded Chucklefish.

[@ravioli-ravioli]

Damn if it's true, it's actually make sense, since this whole game feels like Terraria rip-off lol

[@solouno2280]

We were unaware at that time, Terraria was stuck because of Finn and left in an abysmal state... It still had FF sprites with merchant being Galuf and Drías being Rydia, hell was an adornment and the dungeon was endgame content, all it had was fishing (thankfully there was no angler yet... I still think fishing ruined Terraria though) and after he left, we just had the "pizza oven no more" update and character editor. But in the end, re-logic keeps bringing that "werewolf the apocalypse" gameplay each update

[@Vanessa_exe]

@@solouno2280 fishing in terraria is such an odd concept-- like getting fish for buffs as an alternate source to herb growing would have been fine-- but by tacking on too many rewards, and just strictly better-than-current upgrades-- you really had no choice but to fish. (iirc the old shark pick had basically molten pick power- and you could get it before making any other pick)

[@kimmyera174]

well if that's not a revelation... damn, that gives quite the insight of chucklefish's origins. Had to be so bad among Terraria devs 💀

[@solouno2280]

@@kimmyera174 it was

[@tomboy_kisser]

2 more major issues & scandals you forgot to mention are: despite promising KS backers like myself (ugh...) that we'd get to name an NPC in the game, the names never appear anywhere ingame. The names are just hidden in a single file. Also, they got a puppy, kept it in their office to take pics of it and drum up attention on social media, and indirectly killed it due to their own negligence and incompetence after fans kept warning them not to have exposed wires it could chew on -right next to its effing bed.-

[@mystic-malevolence]

Aw, the dog died? I had not heard that

[@solouno2280]

Oh come on, good thing I was banned so I couldn't see that stupid negligent caniscide. I was early in mid school and still kept my cat away from live wires

[@AW-wf2dx]

Whoa. I never participated in the community other than mods on Workshop. Didn't hear about the dog thing. Do you have a link for that? Crazy stuff.

[@eboatwright_]

13:00 *BRO.* IMAGINE getting TOBY UNDERTALE FOX to compose music for your game, _AND THEN THROWING IT OUT BECAUSE HE'S NOT IN YOUR IRC CHANNEL ENOUGH????_

[@Isntmal]

literally hearsay.

[@Turahk]

💀💀💀

[@digitaldritten]

what is IRC?

[@bluballs3329]

@@digitaldritten Internet relay chat, essentially a client - server text communication. Slack is one for example, but even discord and others like that.

[@eboatwright_]

@@digitaldritten "Internet Relay Chat", basically Discord haha

[@oly_e]

It's only saving grace today is a huge amount of mods that basically overhauls the entire game. Sad to see one of my favorite past times bite the dust

[@nebulabunny8633]

mods were literally the only way for me to play the game singleplayer. And I also played with my friends, again, heavily modded

[@BastetFurry]

Published games don't bite the dust, you can still play them. There are some exceptions where the game won't run without its servers, but i stay clear of them mostly. I can still play trough the complete Wizardry line, Might and Magic still exists, as do good old Doom or, to get back to the topic game, Starbound. Software has no Best Before, you can always make it run, and so even in twenty years from now you will be able to play Starbound, it is not going anywhere.

[@trixelized912]

Currently in a playthrough and having a lot of fun with it, there's a mod called 'Story Disabler' with an official 'Story Disabler Collection' that I can't recommend enough. Really puts back the freedom and discovery into the game

[@SpacialSpace-zc8xj]

@@trixelized912 There's one called 'Optional story' as well which is pretty good. The story is really tedious and removes some of the sandbox nature because of the way it's done. I just want to make a character and explore the universe. But no, without mods you have to go through the intro planet, get the core fragments, do pointless busywork etc. Really wish it just had a story that doesn't immediately force you to slog through it. Aside from story issues to me the game feels really shallow, even with mods. I can add a dozen new planets to the game, but what's the point? They all feel the same to explore with the same copy/paste structures and usually no new ores or anything. I think Starbound is decent as purely a building/exploration game but the lack of any depth makes me not want to play it. I could build a big colony on several different planets, but why would I do that? It's cosmetic as far as I know and serves almost no purpose. This game had so much potential and we're left with a pretty soulless "sandbox" which gets boring after an hour or two unless you're using big mods.

[@rheokalyke367]

Yet the modding scene is also being tainted by the blight that is "Frackin Universe". Seriously, the guy's behaviour actually makes a lot of the competent modders leave Starbound. Especially considering his constant theft of other modders assets, falsely copyright claiming mods he dislikes, making his own mod unplayable (forced research system anyone? He even made god damn ANTICHEAT system to force you to use it.) and using bots to boost his own mods numbers. Also anytime a different mod pops in that would have a chance to be a competitor, the FU devs go out of their way to make the mods incompatible with FU via a hotpatch. I have been in touch with a lot of the modding and creator community and a lot of them agree that FU is a blight onto the community.

[@Captiiva]

Early in development, I remember getting to a moon with barely any fuel left and having to dig deep to get to the liquid fuel. I was using ropes and torches and it felt like an actual adventure getting down there. Then they swapped that out for a ghost thing that chases you while you try and grab as much fuel as you can dig up on the surface. Lame, very lame.

[@go4moo]

There's a fair few bits about the game that I still like, but one thing that really bothered me was that even though you were given an entire galaxy to explore, 80% of all playtime was spent underground because that's where all the resources were

[@marfit77]

really? I just did a lot of planet hopping to loot every dungeon I found

[@BlueShellshock]

No Man's Sky has the opposite problem: there's deep cave systems and even underwater caverns, but the only thing you find is Cobalt, which you can find elsewhere anyways. The only resources are spread out over wide, vast, and same-looking surfaces.

[@karsonkammerzell6955]

Seems to honestly be the same for every game like this.

[@user-fm1hx1st7q]

to me that was kind of the beauty in it. That every planet could have deep caves with structures, resources, portals and loot

[@MunkisManimal]

"Some say the ghosts of those players still haunt the moon caves to this day...... Oh hey, there's one!" - some guy just trying to get fuel

[@rezerkity]

Starbound was a pretty great game, though the devs promised far too much, and ultimately the aesthetic and vibe of the game fell off as the game had a story forced into it. When things were more vague and unexplained is when the game had more charm. It felt more like exploring, less like an amusement park. Now everything feels fairly shallow.

[@Alex-hj2jd]

Having a story doesn't make a game bad. ???????

[@slyseal2091]

@@Alex-hj2jd This game having a story made it bad. !!!!!!!! This is the level of response you deserve.

[@wenelol]

@@Alex-hj2jd Read a comment properly before replying.

[@Alex-hj2jd]

@@wenelol yeah, I suggest doing that

[@Alex-hj2jd]

@@slyseal2091 🤓

[@Intrafacial86]

A major killer was the revolving developer door. There was never a single, clear vision for the game - just a patchwork of orphaned mechanics loosely stitched together. The whole mech system is probably the most glaring example of this.

[@SciFiMangaGamesAnime]

It really felt like a patchwork to me. Some parts were noticeably great, others.. were 'eh' or worse.

[@neztech.]

yeah I when I originally played some of the first builds of the game I had the same feeling. Specific examples like the player ship being limitlessly modifiable seems cool in concept, until you realize that it takes away the whole practical point to build on planets/in space. On paper and their kickstarter project detailings it sounds great, but when brought into actual gameplay... we can see how that turned out.

[@Pixie1001.]

Yeah, it felt like the origional intent was Terraria in space, and then that lead designer got fired and replaced by a guy that thought survival crafting games were lame and the game should be a metroidvania? And like, those fixed metroidvania-style story missions where nothing can be mined were cool and all... But they didn't really have anything to do with the rest of the expereince, which operated on almost totally different mechanics...

[@DinnerForkTongue]

​@@Pixie1001. The "Terraria IN SPACE" era was when the game was by far at its best.

[@solouno2280]

@@DinnerForkTongue I concur, I miss the real game, with last names and everything

[@CobaltIngot]

Hey there, person who was part of the original kickstarter backers. Me and about 3 other friends decided to back the game way back in the day. It looked cool, promising, and the devs were very active. Despite it's rough edges, me and my friends all thoroughly enjoyed the game. Every new alpha update was a ton of fun to explore, and we loved messing with the new features. The temperature system was also cool, having to sacrifice armor protection for temperature protection, so you could continue to progress. Seeing that go was very sad. We had been having a lot of fun despite some of the weird changes because we trusted the process with the developers. Our only big issue up to that point is the amount of time it took for them to implement the community made race (which was embarassingly long, mind you. Only a few updates before official release.) Then, the game released. To say it was a downgrade would be an understatement. Locking the progression behind the lackluster, cookie cutter, boring as white bread story was the game's largest mistake by far. The missions were often more annoying than interesting, and clearing them usually involved having to planet hop to find a randomly generated legendary weapon, which may or may not even be very enjoyable to use. Certain tools had been entirely reworked, often for worse. Crafting building materials and furniture wasn't improved at all. This made playing the game post-final boss terrible. The only thing that carried the game into any sort of enjoyment was the modding. And modding starbound is actually excellent. **So excellent in fact, that Tiy actually offered to add one of the most popular custom races (Avali) into the game, but refused to pay, so it never happened.** Bryce is by far one of the most insufferable and sorry excuses for a developer the industry has ever seen, I hope nobody falls for his tricks again.

[@XXavierSin-XXs]

I played this game during beta with my friends. I found an entire moon full of healing glowing water. My entire existence was about collecting and distributing it. We had mods like crazy. My ship ended up with massive tankers of the stuff. I built a mega factory base on that moon, ans my friends came to buy it and use the spas i made to heal and relax. It was awesome. I played it a year later and it was entirely ruined.

[@Masterho310]

I knew when Eric Barone (the Stardew Valley Creator) was publicly distancing himself from Chucklefish (the publisher of stardew valley), and then when Chucklefish announced they were going to make a Harry Potter esque Hogwarts adventure game set in the stardew valley universe with stardew valley style graphics. And Eric Barone publicly said he had no part in that project and was annoyed people on social media constantly thought that project was associated with stardew valley or was a possible spin off of stardew valley. I knew some shit went down at that point. Had no idea it was this bad.

[@nati0598]

They seem to have changed the assets since. Now the game is isometric, and the characters look more sleek.

[@chilbiyito]

​@@nati0598Witchbrook?

[@nati0598]

@@chilbiyito Yup. When it started, it had a big stardew valley vibe to it. The articles online still have old art.

[@dummobug]

Don't think they ever said it was in the Stardew Valley universe

[@nati0598]

@@dummobug Yes, that's a part of the problem.

[@zman1064]

I loved Starbound, had no idea that all this stuff happened. Never knew it was a Kickstarter campaign. Knew the developers were ass though.

[@uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhidk]

hey wait a minute i just watched one of your videos 3 hours ago

[@blazie42069]

Terraria > Starbound 100% though, terraria is a good classic and the devs are awesome Plus the modding community is thriving

[@robokast]

see one thing i didn’t clarify enough in the video is that the “kickstarter” wasn’t actually on the kickstarter platform but was actually crowdfunded on their website in kickstarter fashion

[@r.g.thesecond]

@@robokastPlease have someone at least review your scripts. Getting lilluminaughtii vibes with your video essays. (concerning)

[@cmaslan]

Also what was the background music/theme... ...it was fire.​@@robokast

[@midorifox]

Starbound is a joke, is a case study on what not to do. Everyone talks about how No Man's Sky became good, this game is the opposite: Started out promising, and became a nightmare to deal with.

[@whiteRiceSupremacist]

It's not that bad if you ignore the drama. Me and my husband has been playing for years and it's been our favorite game to play, especially when he's away from home for work. We only played vanilla too, found the FU mod too complex. It's our cozy game and many others feel the same way.

[@midorifox]

@@whiteRiceSupremacist it is that bad since the game turned for the worse because of the drama. Stop defending the undefendable, these ones promised something that they didn't delivered.

[@whiteRiceSupremacist]

@@midorifox I mean the game is still pretty great despite of that. If you're upset about the potential wasted because of drama, it's understandable but the game itself is not a joke as it is still genuinely being enjoyed by many players.

[@midorifox]

@@whiteRiceSupremacist only those on the echo chamber that's the steam forums. I'm not upset because of the drama, I'm upset because this game is a all in all a con. It's undefendable, and I wish people would stop defend this since it's all but defendable. It's unfinished, crashes a lot, a downgrade from beta, it's a joke. You like it, that's great, but don't come tell me that I shouldn't be upset at those lazy hacks that messed up everything just because you like it.

[@solouno2280]

​@@whiteRiceSupremacistno offense but you either have poor taste or you got a guilty pleasure. And the same applies to your hubby

[@rubywittens2216]

As somebody that player a good bit of Starbound throughout the last 3 years I'm kinda shocked I personally went to it after having a friend recommend me and have spend a few thousand hours in it The time I spend was great but it sucks to hear the backstory of what happened before.

[@swoopiepoopy1608]

I really love Starbound, but I started playing several years after release with no outside knowledge of dev promises so I had no expectations for it. There's a lot of charm to this game and its world, but I'm sure for people who were promised a lot more than we ended up getting it could feel like a real disappointment.

[@bluegem8582]

I had similar experience, I had seen a tiny handful of videos from early days when was in development, but only got it a few years later after never keeping up, around 1.2, so I never had the experience of the procedural open vastness people seemed to have loved from earlier versions, but even then I still loved the experience, though nowadays knowing how bad the development was does make it harder to reminisce freely about just starting out playing game for first time.

[@bluewolf361]

I was someone who followed development closely from the first ever teaser Tiy released; "Starbound Lighting Demo". I was 15 at the time, me and my best friend were glued to the news blog eagerly awaiting what we expected to be the ultimate sci-fi sandbox game. I remember posts about being able to scan wildlife and collate it into a scientific journal of sorts, as well as having motherships that could terraform and bombard from orbit. It seemed like it was going to be a fairly gritty, but roleplay centric kind of game. And for the most part, it still felt that way in the initial beta back on the 4th of December 2013. It had a very Terraria like progression. You'd fight bosses at your own pace and slowly unlock new materials, planet types and so on. I remember the hunts for the elusive 'Earthlike Planet' and forum posts of all the weird and wonderful creatures people had found. Oddly enough, I actually preferred how the old beta used to play. It felt a lot more like a survival sandbox than what we have now. Arguably, the big update that changed the entire trajectory of the game was the Winter Update. That was the one that removed the temperature system, introduced the Erchius Horror mission, completely changed the tech system, and stripped out the old boss summon, sector based progression with what would become the modern story line. The original 'story' was a lot more free form before the introduction of the protectorate. Each race had its own reason for being where they are when the game starts. Avians for example, were fleeing from their cultures routine sacrificial ritual. Abandoning their home and way of life to become a 'Grounded'. Apex were fleeing from a failed rebel attack, being the only surviving member of their group. Humans had the typical 'I thought this alien was cute so I brought it on board, but it woke up and slaughtered everyone' approach. It was fun. Instead, it all got thrown out the window for a 'Space Jesus' story. And that also says nothing about the gradual change from a gritty, roleplay centric game into a slapstick, barely cohesive and poorly paced space opera. Though, if I were to pin the games failure on one thing, I'd honestly say it was internal strife. I had the opportunity to chat with Rhopunzel a few years back, who cited a lot of office political drama and other similar shenanigans.

[@SpacialSpace-zc8xj]

It's just too shallow imo. Exploring planets is fun until you realize there's barely any variation or point to exploring them, the story in my experience just dampens the fun of the sandbox (with the way it has been implemented) and aside from all that the universe doesn't feel alive. Other ships are static, npcs don't do ANYTHING except walk around and maybe sell you some bits. I really like the visual style of the game and the foundation, but there's not much there to actually get your teeth into. If you're someone who can deal with the tedious nature of Starbound then you could probably get 50-100 hours if you like building or you're playing with mods.

[@CoffeeKitty.]

starbound is basically spore in that regard, both of these games i went into completley blind of them being huge dissapointmenting overly hyped games that went through dev hell. and both games i loved to death. to this day i still go back to playing starbound because theres something charming and comftoriting to the game that terraria can't nail. the races, the art, the sound and atmosphere is just.. perfect. making my little plant ship makes me feel very happy and i really do regret it not becoming something better. that being said i cant believe how cynical and fucked up chucklefish became. and i can't forgive that. periodically id go back and check out some of their other games, like starmancer and its just always the same story, unfinished messes over overpromised crap. feels bad.

[@Punsmaster2]

There would be even more charm and love poured into the game if the devs were paid and stayed on with the company instead of having their visions constantly swapped out as it was cobbled together callously Luckily for you there are mods that completely overhaul the game to be a wonderful experience

[@TheOrian34]

It's so ironic to see Terraria and Starbound then, and their state now.

[@ssourbell]

But terraria is doing pretty good tho?

[@TheOrian34]

That's the point, Terraria was said to be dying, while tarbound soared. Now Starbound is dead and Terraria has gotten ridiculous second wind success.@@ssourbell

[@Jenna_Talia]

I'd love to see Re-logic take a shot at reviving the game, if in any universe they ever stop updating Terraria and actually put their heads down to focus on a new project.

[@Hilipinapixili]

Kinda reminds me of the Megaman/Mighty nº 9 situation. Megaman was in the pits, MN9 appeared like some kind of savior of the fans. Game turned out to be dogshit, then Capcom released Megaman 11 afterwards and completely turned the tables.

[@sosig6445]

@@TheOrian34 All terraria needed was just more of the same (as in stay in the current gameplay formula) And Re-Logic sat down and delivered without revising the entire game, they just extended what already worked. Starbound on the other hand scrapped dozens upon dozens of features and reworked others and in the end we were left with inferrior bosses, inferrior lore, inferrior exploration, and inferrior surivor mechanics

[@2Foldri]

I had fun with Starbound and I'm sad it's basically been abandoned. Despite all the disaster it still has potential.

[@solouno2280]

I know that feeling, bro. Koala versions were awesome, the first giraffe (the one that still had unique races) was me being Homer as he pursuits his barbeque pig... Then I learned that you can't count on anyone, specially your heroes

[@Zanian19]

I don't get the premise of this video. 85k steam reviews, 90% positive, seems like a massive success to me, especially for an indie game. Sure it doesn't come close to Terraria, but what games do?

[@ryanrowe9559]

I played over 100 hours of Starbound's early access, and loved so much of it. The almost comedic nature in how boss fights were incorporated was inspired, as was the idea to tie different races stylistically to different eras of human technology and culture. Heck, it even includes one of the most robust player controlled music systems I've ever seen, using a MIDI-like system to play whatever custom songs you want without your friends ever having to install the mods you got them from. When the full game released, i was devastated to say the least. Trading in the hundreds of randomized animal types for the same boring rotation on every planet? A boring story with worse boss fights than the beta? After the 20-30 hours i put in just to beat the story with a friend in co-op, i never touched it again. The only saving grace it offers is a seamless and expansive modding experience that meshes well with multiplayer. Try to find it on sale if you can, i don't know if its even worth the US $15.

[@atersol346]

This video is completely clickbait. 91% of positive reviews on steam and 2.5 million sold copies is not a failed game. This guy should be ashamed. Just rewatch 4:42, those comments be selected completely go against what he JUST SAID.

[@Sleepy_Kitsune]

@@atersol346 the thing is he isnt wrong, the game might have been financially successful but it wasnt what was promised and has since been left to rot, people from all sides say the same thing, its story is unecessary, its gameplay is weak and its crafting/building mechanics are borderline faulty at the best of times also the timestamp you put in is him showing examples of people being optimistic ... of course the comments are going to be hopeful, thats kinda the point of him showing them lol

[@Sleepy_Kitsune]

@@speurtighearnamacterik8230 let me just point this out, saying its being held up by mods isnt a good thing, its a bad thing, it means the base game isnt interesting or indepth enough to be held up on its own, thats an issue base starbound is boring after just a little while because everything feels slow and samey

[@RealFlicke]

@@atersol346 I was very disappointed by the game and never understood all the positive reviews. So for me the video title was okay as I read it as a failure from an artistic perspective.

[@zeeb2190]

@@atersol346 not paying your devs seems to be a bit of a fail,

[@bloodmoney7968]

The game would've been better off not having a main story with missions, especially with what we got. I love the game for how many furnitures it has and the spaceship customization

[@eddiemarohl5789]

I think the story was cool but shouldn't have been as prominent as it was

[@rheokalyke367]

With just a tiny bit of re-tweaking, the story could have just been reduced to optional nonlinear missions attached to each race. Just something you'd get for engaging a lot with a specific species rather than being told "scan their stuff and get mission"

[@donhuea447]

I feel like the story would have worked best as a background thing you mostly ding into through codexes, item descriptions, enviromental storytelling and the like, similar to what other sandbox games have done

[@bloodmoney7968]

Didn't expect my comment to get so many thumbs up, i would've definitely have put more effort into it but yeah to elaborate further the game has many strenghts and one of my favourite has to be the customization and the sheer amount of variety thereof. The story missions are way too scripted and there's a way too obvious wall between them and the activities of the open world/exploration

[@fable23]

Honestly, this kind of game really doesn't lend itself well to traditional narrative structure. Just give us a cool world and stuff to find and we'll do the rest. That's what Terraria did. The story of Terraria is basically "here you are! Have fun."

[@anubiscerberus4348]

Ok, hear me out. I'm NOT going to defend Chucklefish, because, dear god, they are awful as developers and human beings, BUT, in my personal experience, I loved Vanilla Starbound from start to finish. Yeah, it lacked a ton of stuff that Terraria has been offering to us for more than a decade, but I... I just liked it. Its complexity feels right in the middle, between Minecraft and Terraria. I was doing a vanilla side-quest, where a villager from a desert planet asked me to search for their missing cousin. I was kind of low on food, but I said, YAH, WHY NOT? Midway through the desert, it started to get dark, and nocturnal fauna was something I didn't want to mess with, so I built a camp, put a portable stove, and then cooked my dinner while I waited for the night to end. My little camp was inside a cave, but I had enough space at the entrance to look at the stars, and then one of the cutest songs in the OST kicked in. I feel that Vanilla Starbound is about that, taking your time. HOWEVER, LET ME TELL YOU ABOUT WHAT I THINK THE -TRUE- STARBOUND EXPERIENCE IS. If you go to the Steam page right now, you will see that Starbound has positive reviews!... Due to the workshop. YEAH, this is one of those games saved due to the workshop mods. Fracking Universe, Shellguard, the whole Avali race, Arcana, competent mechs and ships... I think I have nearly 92 mods installed and the game barely crashes from time to time. I just love it to such a degree that I used to spend hours and hours building giant bases, exploring new planets with new mechanics and bosses, etc etc etc. My recommendation for Starbound? Try to finish it at least [Once], so you can learn its core mechanics, and then, go crazy with the workshop. FUCK CHUCKLEFISH, long live the modder's comunity.

[@apersonontheinternet8354]

I haven’t ever heard anyone before be so adamant that a dev was so bad. What’s bad about them? Not trying to be rude, I just simply don’t know

[@BlueShellshock]

Funny, I saw Starbound as part of one of those games I picked up as a bundle and thought "hey, I remember everyone being excited about this, why don't I hear about it anymore?" And now I know why. Jeez, to be mismanaged to the point even Toby Fox and Eric Barone don't want to be associated with you, ouch.

[@polearmenthusiast]

you are way overusing that photo click sound effect

[@robokast]

will reduce it in the next video!

[@AndyGneiss]

Agreed.

[@zer0synd1cate]

how many photos is bro taking

[@Micecheese]

if not reduced ill just sponsorblock every photo effect

[@MsVilecat]

​@@robokastPart of its presence in the video makes it similar to someone smacking their lips before they speak. I think it wouldn't be as bad if it was used in a more natural way, if that makes sense?

[@uxtalzon]

The game is a mile wide but a foot deep. There was no reason to build a colony, and thus, no reason to build anything outside your ship.

[@zibbitybibbitybop]

This. I think the only thing I ever built on a planet was a small garden, just because it couldn't be done on the ship like I wanted. All other planetary fixtures were pointless.

[@sneezyfido]

I literally did it because I could. Felt pointless after the build was done, though.

[@zerrodefex]

Any while you could attract colonists and collect rent from them for some reason you had to collect it in person which quickly became a pain to bother with especially if you had more than one colony.

[@stevenharper9108]

I have built a couple bases in the time of the game. Both were on servers, so it was a place for people to go to other than each others’ ships.

[@donovan1345]

I built a colony, because I wanted to build a whole planet worth of a city. Even built the space station. It plays well as a sandbox game, not as a story game.

[@babbygremlin]

this editing is sub par, i cannot stand the overuse of the shutter effect my god

[@riv2052]

its mad playing it on early access versus now, systems I loved back in the day like having two hand slots and random generation of mobs was completely removed

[@AmodeusR]

If someone promises "procedurally generated worlds" and "flashed out and unique" at the same time, you can be sure that's a completely and utter lie. It's like saying you'll make a cold and hot drink.

[@nati0598]

I mean, all procedurally generated world are unique, as for the fleshed out part, you can definitely do the procedural generation over multiple iterations to hone in certain features. It is possible, it's just that no studio that I know of bothers to do it, cuz it costs time and therefore, money.

[@AmodeusR]

@@nati0598 callingp procedurally generated worlds "unique" is quite a catch. you can call unique in pattern, but not in design, and if someone hears "unique" something, they think of truly unique, not just a change of texture or elements order, that's not unique, that's just a inversion of pattern/elements. Naturally it's possible, but just because it means it's possible, it doesn't mean it's cost effective, and that's the point. It's not just a matter of "hmm I'm not feeling like spending money in this", it's that the scalability is exponencial, and fleshing out procedurally generated worlds literally defeats the purpose of procedurally generated worlds, that is to generate tons of worlds without the hassle of manually creating/customizing them. You can change the word "world" for anything else.

[@nati0598]

@@AmodeusR First time when someone started using their own definition of the word "unique" instead of the one everyone else uses. And yes, I specifically agreed that companies don't do this because it's not worth it. It's almost like you didn't read anything past the first sentence.

[@AmodeusR]

@@nati0598 just changing the position from 12 to 21 doesn't make something "unique", changing the order of 2 obstacles in a map won't make "unique". It's a simple definition on experience level, if you can't understand, don't blame me. It's not a matter of me not reading the following sentences past the first one, it's just that you aren't capable of understanding the difference of mere "it's expensive", and "it's simply contradictory to flash out procedure generated worlds since we procedurally generated them exactly so we didn't need to work on making multiple different worlds" and the exponential cost growth involved in just thinking of it, and that not considering the ineffectiveness, doesn't translate well in just "it gets expensive".

[@nati0598]

@@AmodeusR ... Do you know what procedural generation is? It's not 12 or 21, it's inventing new numbers. But I guess modular procedural generation is more popular anyway due to the aforementioned lower cost. Seems like you're the one who's incapable of understanding the difference. Btw, if you're gonna claim it's impossible, don't go saying companies don't do it because of "low effectiveness". It's either impossible or not.

[@TuxedoMaskMusic]

Starbound Composer has a built-in ABC editor, so you can write your song and immediately preview it to hear what it'll sound like Starbound. The musical systems were AMAZINGLY well developed. Now games like guild wars 2 and lord of the rings online had music systems but none of them were as good as starbound that supported midi files IN GAME.

[@TombstoneDjango]

There is an mmo that has a similar midi supported music composing system. A 3-line midi composing system. It’s called Mabinogi. Literally the only saving grace of that game, because 90% of it is lazy gachapon bait with an over bloated market.

[@siegfread9683]

​@@TombstoneDjangoI wouldn't say the only saving grace. In a world of wow clones it had a decently interesting combat system based around stunlocking enemies to avoid damage.

[@TombstoneDjango]

@@siegfread9683 it has a very interesting combat system, but considering it’s an mmo where 90% of the content is solo, so personally, I find it boring. The handful of actual multiplayer content that is very late game isn’t enough to pique my mmo interest. There are better places to invest my time for that aspect. The music system though, that actually is extremely unique and complex for online game, as there are only a handful, and none do it better.

[@theod0r]

Man these single word subtitle, camera shutter sound effect, crumpled paper backgrounds you use in between B roll footage are very irritating. I feel like it makes the editing seem unfocused, like you didn't know what to put in those scenes. It's also very distracting from an audio perspective, the click and swoosh sounds are a bit louder than your voice, so that's what I'll set my volume to. Meaning your voice ends up being a bit too quiet for comfortable listening. Maybe the sounds should be normalized a bit more.

[@Skall-ex]

Dude

[@theod0r]

@@Skall-ex Yes?

[@xSkyHigh12]

The whoosh sfx spam gets really annoying really really fast

[@Butt_Slayer]

Good video as usual, but those camera shutter sounds and white animated crumpled paper backgrounds are very annoying. Not to mention the single word commentary. They seem to be almost applied at random with varying intensity throughout the video. Just a suggestion but I could do without those sections and effects completely. They don't add anything to the video and transition to white is very glaring.

[@robokast]

I can definitely change the white paper background as i’ve gotten a lot of complaints about it, but I will say the single word subtitles really do help to keep retention up. Maybe a less glaring background will make them more tolerable?

[@Butt_Slayer]

@@robokast I think the background change will help. I guess I don't really mind the commentary, I think its more the other points. Always appreciate your videos, so keep up the good work. :) I didn't know any of this backstory to Starbound.

[@YukoValis]

@@robokast yeah it kinda kept flash banging me. Let me give you some humble advice. If you are going to test a new transition, watch it yourself with the lights off in your room. It is a good way to tell if something is too bright or annoying. At this point the video is kind of unwatchable with my lights off.

[@ExtensionEXE]

@@robokast the single word subtitles make me want to look away from the video and do something else while it continues playing in the background. Maybe most of your viewers have the attention span of a goldfish and that's why it helps retain them, but for the rest of us who are older than twelve and don't use TikTok it's really annoying.

[@ayrtonpavot3096]

@@robokast the camera shutter sounds are really icky

[@RosemaryTheFloran]

This is painful to watch... I remember stumbling onto starbound in 4 to 6 years ago, and I was immediately enthralled. I had no idea the past that it had, but I found it super fun. Every now and then, I play it again, though usually with the Frackin' Universe mod, which I suppose could be closer to the original vision of Starbound. All this explains why no one knows about Starbound when I ask if anyone knows about Starbound. This game was super influential on me, my profile picture is a dang floran. I wish everyone who worked on the game got paid.

[@AveragePearEnjoyer]

The main questline needed a rework as the artifact scanning quests are so tedious. I think they also made the mistake that a Lot of indie or small studio games make of adding more random content like pokeballs, flying cars, pocket dimension platforming challenges, that late game dungeon crawl thing (forgot the name) or mechs to get attention instead of really polishing the core experience. We need like 10x the variety in planet types AND manmade structures, and a rework to the progression system. Like, compare exploring a cave in terraria to exploring a cave in starbound. That right there is what separates an evergreen game like terraria from something more forgettable. It really is a shame because the game did so many things right. I loved upgrading my ship and decorating the interior. A lot of the story dungeons and bosses were pretty cool. And i think the sandbox elements and the setting (florans are also my favorite. Pretty flower people who are also carnivorous barbarians with funny mannerisms, awesome) are really well done. But, its just sort of sloppily executed in a lot of ways. It feels like a waste. I hope someone else can pick up where they left off. Even no mans sky really fell short of this concept for a game, and it has a lot of the same problems. The 10/10 procedurally generated space exploration game is like the holy grail of ambitious gaming projects, someone will nail it eventually.

[@bluegem8582]

@@AveragePearEnjoyerI remember another video about the story of Starbound's development, and it does bring up a good point in that due to all the unpaid labor, game got so many systems/overhauls that were all ultimately surface deep, because the people making those would either be basically left on hold when they needed a break, lost the initial drive that fueled them, or left the project when it became clear they weren't gonna be getting a paid job at company, no one was there to understand or flesh out the system to any real degree, like, as you mentioned, archeology, "pet" system with those capsules, or terrain navigation when generation was overhauled

[@Jenna_Talia]

Same here. Florans and Novakids are probably my favourite fictional races ever. I just hate frackin universe. At some point I'll try it again probably but it felt like it was tacking on weirder, more complex ways to get stuff that already exists in the base game, as well as locking basic gear behind an ugly looking tech tree. Vanillla starbound's saving grace was that it initially gave you direction, but I felt so lost when playing FU.

[@Jenna_Talia]

@@AveragePearEnjoyer I think more devs need to treat space like the creators of Star Citizen are doing - only including a few systems and populating them with planets, moons, asteroids all chock full of content, rather than like in Elite where it's a literal 1:1 recreation of the Milky Way, but every system is almost exactly the same. I do hope someone nails it eventually though, and DOESN'T make the flight insultingly arcadey as well as focusing too much on a hamfisted in FPS aspect.

[@AveragePearEnjoyer]

@@Jenna_Talia i think procedural gen can work. Look at helldivers, the maps are procedurally generated from some canned geographic features and populated with repetitive objectives. But the game is actually challenging and high energy. Extremely fun. NMS and starbound feel like a slog because the main focus of what you are doing is actually on the terrain itself. But if games could REALLY pressure the player while they are looking for resources on the planets with well designed combat or stealth or whatever, so you can get away with a more practical amount of content to populate the world. Put a timer for how long you can stay on the surface at a time, and then reset and re-generate the map when it runs out. That kind of mechanic makes picking up rocks in subnautica really, really engaging. Thats what i mean when I say it feels like a waste. It just needs a little bit of that sauce and it would be great.

[@mauroquinteros8783]

dude I really like starbound, didnt know about all of this, so sad, developers and creators like chucklefish should know people can wait like we wait on terrario or stardew updates, we only want honesty and transparency

[@TeamBevontation]

All I remember about this game is using the soda exploit during the 2019 steam summer sale to power level my steam profile.

[@oriondezagrats4228]

The listed problems aren't all that happened, and I'm certain it only goes deeper. For example, at one point in time, the author of one of the most popular ammo overhaul mods was approached with the possibility of making the mod an official part of the game. Needless to say, said individual seemed pretty ecstatic, but, and this is where my memory gets a little hazy, I believe they had some NDA clause stuff before they could bring this individual on fully, and said individual asked a few questions to get clarification or reassurances before they ended up getting ghosted by the team member that had approached them. Multiple attempted communications later with zero replies, they got frustrated enough to make all public, and it was only after that moment that they got any kind of response at all. Given all the other stuff Chucklefish's done, and this, I'm like 100% certain there's a bunch of stories of awful management and treatment that simply haven't gone public yet. I categorically refuse to support them. They got my money for Starbound - anything else they put out isn't getting any more out of me, no matter if they developed it or simply published it.

[@Gh0st4rt1st]

I think same happened with Avali mod from RyuujinZERO. Their modded race was about to become official but the devs of Starbound tried to fully claim race IP without any credits to RyuujinZERO and they wanted that mod maker to give up on race. I am glad that mod maker disagreed and did not allow them to claim Avali race.

[@gnu191]

"change gaming forever" Y'all say that about every game lmao.

[@thecuchikiller]

To be honest, I never heard of anyone talking about Starbound saying "Change gaming forever" more like just "Terraria in space".

[@nestorgamer9746]

sometimes is true, most times not for the best...

[@renzotkac1236]

bro is out of ideas sometimes, just let him cook and the video will be fine later

[@riplix20]

Man I tried to watch a video last night. “ 1 hour of useless information about fallout new vegas “ Every single thing he said started with “ in this area in fallout new Vegas you can find… “ and ended with “ that’s where you can find a in fallout new vegas “ Every single minute or so, starting and ending with “ in fallout new vegas “ Compared to that type of padding, this guy saying a little bit of hyperbole is a-okay in my book.

[@SL4PSH0CK]

It's that or "**Insert game here* killer"

[@sugarpolecat4781]

The irony of Terraria and Starbound, is that Terraria had a "last" update that basically made the devs go "yeah lol we cant leave this its too good" and they went on to make more updates after the "last" update. Then we have Starbound, which was dead on arrival basically, but was hailed as the New Terraria, the next Terraria, Terraria 2.0. But became Terraria 0.5. The only good thing was the infinite planets.

[@krodmandoon3479]

I don't know who told you that dark gameplay footage with white flashing transitions was a good idea but I hate them more than I've ever hated anyone.

[@Falcarious]

Starbound isn't just one of those games that's better with mods, I feel like it NEEDS them. It really did feel gutted after the Koala builds, something you didn't mention that irks me personally is the removal of unique race traits in favor of unique racial armor stats, because apparently it's bad to have players chose a race based on stats. Despite the fact Novakids still glow in the dark and start with gun crafting. There is no reason for a minmaxer to play anything except Novakid, so why remove flavor from the rest?

[@solouno2280]

Because novakids father had money in the bank. Their race got immunity to the Naruto cloning machine

[@sectionEnigma]

You should check out all the controversy the largest mod (Frakkin Universe) has caused. It was like the entire mod team looked at what Chucklefish did, and decided to somehow be *worse* than them. From bullying other mod creators into adding their mods to it (and if they refused, the mod dev just basically created the same mods to put into his own so no one had a reason to download the original mod) to intentionally adding in code to fuck with your game if another mod was used that "wrecked the balance of the mod", to plenty of other things. It is a rabbit hole to go down.

[@enemote]

I think people overplay the FU drama. To be fair to FU, what were they supposed to do? Sayter wanted a feature on the mod, he sees that said feature was already implemented by another mod, he reaches out and asks if they can to add the mod to FU, some modders agree, and some didn't, the ones that didn't then went on to complain when the FU team wrote their own code that basically does the same things as their mod does as if they somehow have rights to concepts of mods. Do you just NOT add features to your mod then because someone else has already done it and they refuse to let you add their mod (and they also will complain if you code a similar mod)? That's just completely unreasonable. That's like me adding guns to a minecraft mod and then complaining when someone's modpack includes guns aswell because they are conceptually too similar to my mod, it's nonsense.

[@scorpixel1866]

@@enemote "Your honour, this man didn't want to give me his icecream recipe. I had no choice but to steal it from his house then launch a lawsuit against him for selling the same icecream as mine". Dude didn't do "similar" he straight-up ripped the code from the mods and forced incompatibility with those that couldn't, along doing copyright strikes on anyone he doesn't like.

[@Sone01TheFirst]

@@scorpixel1866 Now I am very unfamiliar with that whole thing, but the absurdity that he could copyright strike other mods makes me seriously doubt the full validity behind this.

[@scorpixel1866]

@@Sone01TheFirst False claims exist, harassing someone enough can force many people out of a medium.

[@Sone01TheFirst]

@@scorpixel1866 But how can you make a false claim for a _Mod_ ? Can people actually own the intellectual property for that?

[@strongenough4u]

Funnily enough I was one of those people that just fell in love with the game's design and aesthetic (I have like 1500 hours sunk into it), but it took me over 5 years to learn about all these things since I've never been one to bother with community mingling. On a side note, this game had a knack for luring people of dubious character: Sayter, creator of Fracking Universe, the most popular mod for SB, was accused by many modders of stealing their work and incorporating it into FU, as well as being extremely rude and instigating his followers to harass his perceived "enemies" online.

[@KipaYumiya]

I could see why it failed due to the final release being a completely different game but having said all that, I could never get back to Terraria because of how different Starbound is, instead of focusing on boss battling one after the next, it has more of a sandbox feel to it, building cybercities, exploring settlements, converting midis into the game so that i could collect all the instruments to play any songs in its soundfonts I think why starbound failed is moreso that they failed to capture the audience that they first intended to target and the rest of its life was clinged on by a different playerbase that could not justify why they're playing a broken promise of a game

[@user-nq5yy6nq2b]

Can you use less camera sound effects please?

[@IAMELIPHAS]

There's also another thing to consider, and that's the community itself. The mod 'community'. Let's be frank, if it wasn't for being easily moddable, starbound would have died far earlier. It's only because of the mods that it still has a playerbase at all. However, the mod community has its own problems. Notice I put it in scare quotes earlier because in all honesty, it's not really even a community. It's just a collection of little tribes revolving around a few cults of personality that all hate each other.

[@Sleepy_Kitsune]

the mod scene being filled with insular tribes is honestly kind of amazing considering part of Starbounds planets are separated out tribes and groups with their own beliefs

[@ptolemaicfoxxo3032]

I just wish more mods actually contributed to the story rather than being their own thing, its uncanny playing with friends and they send you a 200 page mod list and none of them add anything of value. Hell some of them will add one item and theres no way in hell anyones going out of their way to use it in game

[@dependent-ability8631]

all modding communities are like this

[@lucasLSD]

@@ptolemaicfoxxo3032 The story is unsalvageable.

[@crashniels]

I just want the starbound beta back

[@Jerrycourtney]

*_Maybe the real reason Starbound failed is all the friends we made along the way._*

[@TheLreez]

I remember playing while major updates were going on. I wasn't active in any forum/community or anything, I just noticed one day that it was updated and that the story changed. It was a fun experience because it was so glitchy and I ended up getting into places that weren't finished. The one that I remember was a giant ruin with a mural on the wall, which you could break if you managed to hit a specific tile. The ENTIRE atmospheric mural piece was actually coded as a normal wall decoration, and it dropped as an item that I picked up lol. If I remember correctly, the ruin seemed intended to be inaccessible, and I had to grapple along underneath the entire starting outpost to reach it. Another update later removed a lot of items that were in the previous version, and they were all replaced with placeholder "mysterious" items which could be crafted into "mysterious" armor, which was kind of cool.

[@yellowice0]

You forgot to mention that the guy main guy from Chucklefish studios actually broke off from Re-logic (The creators of terrarira) and basically cloned it 1:1 thinking he could do it better and make more money, The game was a failed clone, not just employee abuse- though it was so systemic that ConcernedApe (the creators of Stardew-Valley) actually cut ties with Chucklefish studios because of it, way-back-when if those actually recalled seeing the Chucklefish studios logo popping up on launch when you played Stardew-Valley.

[@Necrius]

He also was an artist for Terraria that stole Final Fantasy sprites and almost got Re-Logic in trouble for this.

[@selka1661]

@@Necrius WAIT THAT WAS HIM!??! I remember hearing about this so long ago it makes so much sense that the lazy prick who tried to copy Terraria wouldn't even be creative enough to make things while he worked for Terraria.

[@thegreendank1]

Did you not watch the video? He said he came from the terraria team, and he mentioned the concerned ape thing????

[@joshwenn989]

Up until this exact moment I genuinely thought they were both by the same company, for some reason.

[@johnderat2652]

And he still managed to form a team that made Starbound, which easily blows Terraria out the water if you use mods. Base game? Sure, Terraria is more fleshed out. If you include mods though? Starbound is lightyears ahead. Terraria mods are so... meh. Meanwhile Starbound mods make the game so much more interesting.

[@PriestOfTheHelix]

Modern Starbound is a game that is fundamentally carried by it's modding community. There are so many people online who put far more effort into making the game fun then the developers did that playing the game unmodded is just a worse experience over all. Frackin Universe and other overhaul mods really do a great job of fulfilling the promises Chucklefish failed to do (if you can get past the required Master's Degree in Chemistry it takes to understand how to craft things in FU.)

[@spyr0guy]

The other problem with FU is it being 95% stolen content. Like, “copied from people’s GitHubs with the metadata filed off” stolen. Try Arcana, Starforge, Project Ancient Cosmos, Betabound, Shellguard, and/or Maple32 instead.

[@had_fun_once]

A lot of people defending the game seriously overlook the fact the mods probably have a lot to do with the game's current positive rating and playerbase.

[@skarano]

Cute Pokemon Being Stretched

[@sneedchuck5477]

@@spyr0guy to be fair, open source means open source, whether you like the person using the stuff you made or not so it's not really stolen

[@Joey5537]

@@sneedchuck5477 Most open source code has a license that does not allow its use without attribution at the very least. Just because something is available for copying does not mean there is no copyright on it.

[@Spirit6099]

Well, I never knew about all this stuff around Chucklefish. I didn’t know anything about cut content, about broken promises. This game was a beautiful experience for me. I loved it dearly. Loved the soundtrack, loved the art, loved it’s sort of simplicity which I cannot explain (all I can say is that Frackin Universe made the game unplayable to me because of the abundance of mechanics and content, it just blown my mind). It was our first game together for me and my wife, who loved it dearly, too. We never realized any of the game’s issues. It was just a cute little adventure for us for more than 500 hours each. And it was our happy place during very dark times. It’s pretty sad to know all this background now.

[@HyperJuni]

Back in 2021, within the span of just a few months, I went from being unaware of this game even existing to creating a fairly popular species mod for it, so I can probably contribute a perspective that is somewhat different to most others here in the comments. I discovered the game purely by accident and for some reason decided to give it a try even though it's not the type of game I normally like to play. Having never heard of it, I went in as a clean slate, and to be honest - it very much pulled me in. The atmosphere, the music, the lighting, the weather, the species interactions and many many small details all felt very charming and kept me playing for months. The storyline felt a bit shallow, but I assumed that "that's just how it is in this type of game", and continued playing it for all the other appealing aspects of it, of which there are many. Two and a half years later, and it -still- feels like the overwhelming majority of the bad press is solely due to its' development history, which is extremely unfortunate. It pains me to see that history taint all of the passion that so many people have put into it, even if under abysmal circumstances. It feels unfair to them and all of their hard work at this point, to be tossed aside and forgotten, because the person in charge was making all those awful decisions all these years ago. During this time I've also had the opportunity to personally and regularly interact with many of the dev team of Frackin' Universe, as well as the person leading it, and it felt somewhat similar to what I've heard of Starbound's dev history - a lot of passionate, talented and devoted people often being subjected to decisions that aren't always informed by the feedback, or ones they don't necessarily fully agree with. None of them are bad or evil people, the ones in charge included, but it just feels that at this point - not many of them are still paying enough attention to the fanbase, the game, or the mod - which is where most of the community's frustration with it seems to be stemming from. Having said all that, if there was one thing I had to point to as the "best" feature of the game - it'd be, hands-down, its' moddability. It's not perfect, and it's made in a way that leaves a lot to be desired, but to me feels like the entire point of the game at this point. It lets a person who's never opened an advanced text editor in their life go "I wish my Floran could have a cute hair accessory", do a quick online search and within minutes learn how to create their own. That was a first for me.

[@NeverduskX]

I loved Starbound. It was legitimately the game that got me into PC gaming. My best friend and I were addicted to it - and my favorite aspect was the city-building, since it was everything I dreamed of. It was the first PC game I put over 100 hours into. But... for some reason, once 1.0 came into view, the game started getting strangely worse. It was like the quality was dipping instead of rising. And once 1.0 actually came out, it was like the game had somehow regressed from beta to alpha. My friend and I stopped playing it a few weeks after that. I still think about Starbound sometimes. But instead of feeling nostalgic, it only feels sad.

[@princeimrahil6557]

POV someone is giving you a great Starbound documentary while a toddler plays with a camera in the next room

[@nekomancer47]

Yeah I honestly had to stop watching the video cuz of that lol it got really annoying

[@contactron]

I literally started gettting a headache

[@clownworld4655]

POV you have autism

[@laLuminescence]

Yeah I was about to complain about the choice of transition in this video. Watching that repeatedly at 2AM just sucks.

[@rman88]

Funny thing about this is.. By definition this game was going to be a failure. As you cannot have a Procedural generated world that is also well built and filled with story. Those two things just don't mix together.

[@MysteriousStranger50]

>shows dark screen in the footage for a couple of seconds >super bright camera flash transition effect MY EYES

[@TheCrazyCount]

I kinda hope that chucklefish will one day just look at starbound and just say, "huh, I wonder what would happen if we updated or made another starbound."

[@armando92]

They did. Farworld pioneers, not from chucklefish but from the devs of starbound. As you can imagine it failed too, so not all of the starbound fail was because chucklefish

[@Kinsect101]

@@armando92 Yeah checking out one of the Reviews on it's steam page mentions that they stopped updating it and are relying on volunteers to continue support.

[@jungeebunglez8599]

They clearly wouldn't have any good idea on what to add. Instead of fleshing out the game with the final update they just randomly added mechs that have barely any integration with the game itself.

[@RavenAdventwings]

@@armando92 ...huh. No wonder that game felt extremely familiar. And I thought it was just another Terraria clone riffing off of Starbound vibes.

[@OzixiThrill]

Unless they summoned a genie to grant their wishes, signed pacts with several devils and demons, bribed Lady Fortune for their luckiest break in their lives and had a time-traveling cyborg from an alternate universe all to help them make the best possible update to the game, you can bet your ass that they would get hate for it on the grounds that they borked everyone's favourite mods.

[@Brixxter]

I don't think the game is as bad as you're making it out to be, but it's definitely beyond repairing. That said, there is something extremely nostalgic about the game that draws me in every couple years or so. I listen to the soundtrack by Curtis Schweitzer a lot. It makes me reminisce about a different time of my life. I really hope the idea gets tackled by another studio at some point.

[@noreluss]

Yeah, the music is great, I love the outpost music, and the "atlas" theme :)

[@SpaceManFive]

Funny thing about it being beyond repairing. The game's sourcecode got leaked recently by former staff, so modders are fixing up the (horrific undending) issues with the game's code and it looks great so far! o_o;

[@somewhereelse1235]

I'm on the opposite end of the spectrum, Brix, to where I think that RoboKast wasn't harsh enough. I put too many hours into the game, I've spent dozens of hours just talking about things that I'm disappointed that Chucklefuck changed from the last beta patch to full release, not to mention the early full release campaign being beyond tedious with how many different planets you'd have to go to to scan a scant handful of items that were valid in leading you to the artifacts. It got better, even if not majorly, but the combat still punishes you for not using guns and then makes the guns unfun to use, not to mention most of the bossfights still aren't that fun or well balanced. Music absolutely slaps, though.

[@brokendoop]

It is definitely as bad as he's making it out to be, you practically just admitted that nostalgia is clouding you're vision. I have 766 hours in it I am fully aware.

[@atersol346]

91% of positive reviews on steam and 2.5 million sold copies is not a failed game. Just rewatch 4:42, those comments be selected completely go against what he JUST SAID. This video is clickbait and he should be ashamed.

[@brendanbush2174]

What I hate the most was that they took what was essentially an open world, non-linear game, and forced a campaign with the most linear and boring loop onto it. Scan stuff, scan alot more stuff, do a mission, kill a boss, repeat.

[@jupiterthree5228]

I have 200 hours in Starbound. I didn't know any of this. Didn't play the game until 2017ish. Starbound was actually my first game on Steam. A friend of mine convinced me to start gaming, and it's history from there. Thanks for the video :]

[@ChronoGamerOne]

Hard to watch this whenever you would flash text on the screen against crinkly paper background. Really unpleasant visual.

[@soundrogue4472]

After playing Modded Minecraft; no you don't need a Fleshed out world. Having the world react to your choices like mining magic ore in a area for an example causing more chaotic disruption events with the world reacting to your choices, your actions feeling like they hand meaning. That and having an RPG mod that allowed you to add your own NPCs/ quest if need be. My point is; you can have an in depth great game that's RNG generated.

[@steelmote]

It has the same problem every block game develops: It promises you a world of adventure, building, and exploration - a sandbox - and then it railroads you into a progression. You spend all your time hoarding stuff and fighting stuff because there is no semblance of a living, breathing world and there's almost nothing else to do in those worlds anyway. The fun, open-ended parts of the sandbox are sacrificed to turn the game into a half-assed RPG.

[@ashurakusanaga5917]

A Redditor once said it best, in response to someone asking if Starbound was dead. They said "Starbound isn't dead, but it is on life support thanks to its modding community". I think the only reason most people play Starbound to this day is because of mods like Arcana, Betabound, and Frackin Universe.

[@Milk-vf6zz]

I have a friend who is adamant that Starbound is the best game ever, even when its most basic mechanics (jumping, movement techs, combat) are unfinished/unpolished. It doesn't have a tickrate or anything, its based on the framerate, meaning that its literally slower if you don't have max fps (60), and not to mention that it was built on the revolving door of unpaid labor, which is why the mechanics are crap, because one person, who wouldn't be anywhere near an expert at programming, would start working on them, then leave after not getting paid, and would get replaced by another person, who also wasn't being paid, and they would make progress and the cycle would repeat itself, leaving the mechanics as horrible frankenstein/patchwork that don't fit together in any meaningful way. Then there is the fact that they once updated the game in a way that caused most mods for the game to become incompatible, meaning modders would have to go back and fix their mods to get them to work, and the update didn't fix anything, it added a crappy bounty hunting system that wasn't fun or even worth anyone's time. Don't spend your time trying to find any fun in that game, you'll just waste your time.

[@olivercharles2930]

it is still a pretty good game lol i have around 70 hours in it

[@nightshade8958]

Starbound is a great game, even with it's short comings.

[@DrNiradino]

Starbound had the same problems NMS later had - lack of direction, reliance on RNG to deliver sustainable content, and disconnection in game elements. Terraria, as a direct comparison has a clear goal in front of a player at all times - killing bosses. You get better gear, build arenas, get food and buffs (and set up farms for thous), get potions and try to kill whatever boss is in your sights. What do you have in Starbound? Borefest of a main quest that asks you to do the same thing over and over again? Traveling from planet to planet digging recolored ores? Dungeons that pop up from time to time with a boss that has 5% chance to drop unique loot, that would be outclassed by a sword that you'll find in a random dumpster? None of that gives a interesting goal for player to work towards. What it did had and what it prided itself upon is an randomly generated world with randomly generated inhabitants on it that would give you randomly generated quests. Except the problem was, that randomly generated content isn't exactly interesting to explore. It can be a filler for some handcrafted content that you can hide behind it, but as I said before, it just wasn't there. And then came patches. Pointless grind upon pointless grind that doesn't connect to the main systems in any way or improve on the base formula. Complete hundreds if not thousands of mech missions to upgrade your mech that you can basically use only for mech missions was a peak of it.

[@SomeSickDingus]

As an indie solo developer/musician this is yet another good meditation on what could be and the environments one finds themself in a team. It reminds me of why I never could be in a band. I always felt like I was watching a very bad reality show as drama and chemistry got in the way of music making. Making art , a whole experience, a game, making that happen... is a dream and the best way to kill any dream is to abuse others that share that dream, acting as if you are the only one involved in it.

[@woozienebunu]

I played several hours after lanunch and missed out on all the drama but, while I did enjoy my time with it, it did feel a tad repetitive, especially in the main quest design. On a different note, does anyone know what the song @10:00 happens to be?

[@Architector_4]

oh god, the bright low framerate constantly changing high contrast crumbled paper background, and the video jumping from dark cave gameplay of starbound to that and back at complete random, and the flashbang transitions from that dark gameplay, is all painful on the eyes

[@meatbug8611]

I somehow have 1000 hours on Starbound

[@atersol346]

Yeah because this game isnt as bad as this guy is making it out to be, twice already in half the video he just blatantly lies.

[@MaNameWahb_]

omg meatbug from that one james bucket video

[@meatbug8611]

​@@MaNameWahb_I lied

[@SpacialSpace-zc8xj]

@@atersol346 I can see people getting maybe up to 200 hours in a heavily modded run of Starbound, but I don't see how people can play much beyond that. What do you even do at that point? Just build mega colonies for the sake of it?

[@JoJo-gt7ty]

​​@@atersol346he didn't lie about anything. Chucklefish sucks, and Starbound is objectively a bad game: combat's trash, very low weapon variation and firearms use stamina for some reason instead of ammo; easy and uninspired bosses; storyline is a generic fetch quest; low enemy variety; bugs like entity lag; and so many more problems

[@HansLemurson]

I remember being dubious that it could set itself apart from Terraria, and already knew from experience that "infinite procedural generation" generally means about as much meaningful variety as shuffling a deck of cards.

[@Janx14]

The very early part of the beta I played sounds like it was the best part. There was barely any ship or story, it was just an open world you could explore and do stuff in.

[@KJWY]

I usually don't care about these stuff but the swooshing air sound effect really makes me frustrated, it feels like someone is blowing in your ear...

[@88t]

that woosh sound effect hurts my ears 😭

[@KJWY]

I couldn't watch the video because of it, it's really annoying

[@DeffoSpaniel]

I remember dropping this game a few years after it came out. In its early years it was really open ended and sandbox oriented; if you were going to a cold planet, the solution to survive the cold would be to find warm clothing, to build a shelter, and a fire. You'd have to go from place to place, staying warm. But then they changed it, and then you had to do main story quests in order to get suit upgrades, so you can go to planets with harsher environments.

[@DugdoesDigging]

one subject of criticism i have for your video: you seem to really either 1 like the crumpled paper background asset, or 2. dont have any other assets for putting text over, i really recommend making like an avatar or other drawing of yourself to put there and like point at charts or other things like that, otherwise from what ive seen it looks like a good video. also please use anything other than the shutter sfx when going to and from the gif, it is very grating

[@csabaszasz4466]

I am so sad for the poor guys still working on Freakin' Universe...keeping the game alive..

[@ptolemaicfoxxo3032]

I feel so sad that Fracken Universe is the mod keeping the game alive XD

[@LucidOrdinance]

well this came at a bit of a shock to me. Never knew there was this amount of controversy, I kinda just put in my hundred hours and moved on after generally having a pleasant experience years ago. Quite a shame that it became this, I was thinking of playing it again at some point.

[@i-Sparki]

If there's one good thing that came out of Starbound is that the Avali of today basically came to be as a mod in the game. Before Starbound, they were just a custom race in Spore, quite niche. With the Starbound mod, they became prominent and without that, I doubt they'd be as popular a fantasy sci-fi race today; their appearance in VRChat would be far more unlikely.

[@Nairue]

I love the Avali race, mostly because I think they're cute. I definitely have to thank Starbounds existence for that.

[@TooFewSecrets]

The only positives I've ever heard in regards to Starbound have to do with modding. Think that says something...

[@shooby9496]

If there's one thing I had to give shoutout to Starbound for it's the music. Everyone who worked on that music really knew what they were going for in a mysterious, empty and fascinating space frontier.

[@crabman3144]

I played and greatly enjoyed the Starbound Beta. I was disappointed when 1.0 released, and so much changed. Procedurally generated creatures were a highlight for me, but from 1.0 on, a lot of planets had more or less identical wildlife. The scanning portions between actual main plot missions was tedious, the Novakid race lacked a quest, and all of the sudden, instead of using radioactive materials for fuel, it's a form of macguffinite that only appears on moons and prompts a ghost to chase the player around. When I was playing with friends after the 1.0 launch, I volunteered to be the fuel guy because all of us found the ghost annoying, and I was the best at escaping it. The temperature mechanics got simplified to an upgrade you equipped and upgraded, making the game even more shallow. Circling back to the main quest, nothing is really explained. OK, so the six species scattered across the galaxy have artifacts that open the door to The Ruin, the remains of Earth that was destroyed by a colossal tentacle monster. But we learn little to nothing about said tentacle monster, only that it's a force of destruction that the Cultivator, a sort of creator god figure, basically died to seal away, and the Novakids were born from his remains. A lot of lore from the beta was struck out, and we don't know a lot about the Cultivator either. The game was still fun, but despite adding mechs, it was a lesser experience than the beta. I haven't played the Bounty hunter missions from the 1.4 update. Maybe I'll replay the game again sometime soon and play them after I finish the main quest.

[@Feuerhamster]

To me procedural creatures lacked variety too, as there was just too few templates to pull from. Frankly i'd rather have a decent pool of pre-made creatures than "totally different" creatures whose only difference is that one breathes blue stuff and the other breathes green stuff. And that's how it is in the rest of the game. It's got a lot of potential but due to incompetence and scumminess of Chucklefish it's about as deep as contents of a spilled glass of water.

[@crabman3144]

@@Feuerhamster I agree that there should have been more parts and behaviors for procedurally generated creatures. And while I like the creatures the game has now, I feel like a mix of the current creature population and an improved form of the procedural creatures would be the best solution; the old procedural ones did get a bit same-y, but the visual variety was still nice.

[@ptolemaicfoxxo3032]

I miss my procedurally generated large bird creatures, they were terrifying. All the premade creatures suck especially when using capture balls, what you really want to do is capture some procedural large creatures since theyre the strongest. Now that you mention it too, the fuel thing sucks. Now moons are completely inhospitable and you cant have a cool moon base anymore! Bullshit!

[@lenlimbo]

The Bounty Hunter missions are, in my opinion, much better and more fun than the base game. It's basically a 70-80 cops movie... in Space! WITH MECHS! It's also a direct sequel to the main campaing, so it's better to play them AFTER finishing the game. But I may have a biased opinion because at that point, I played with mods so the mechs were more interesting that the core ones (which are still miles above the base Starbound, so...). And maybe some of the reward weapons and gear were tweaked a bit by one or another of the mods I usually play with. I couldn't say, I have too many mods and it has been years since I played last.

[@Sakrifice2121]

I liked the video, but that clicky-shuttery sound you were using for transitions is really, really grating

[@kaukospots]

A friend of mine worked on the soundtrack for the game, and showed it to me and a few other friends at a LAN party in probably 2010-2011. He left during the volunteer fiasco and all his stuff has been removed since they redid the OST during release. The whole thing is just sad, the game was really fun.

[@yyeetmax2849]

i started playing the game earlier in developement, when the progression system was sector based and you needed to kill bosses to progress through sectors, i didnt have the context as i had randomly discovered the game, and, i dont know if it is the nostalgia talking but i have very fond memories from that version i played, going o a new sector after a tough boss fight just to be one shot by one of hose special enemies that dropped a weapon when you kill them, finding the dash tech in a chest and being able to basically glide through half a planet until my energy ran out. i remember playing through the game fully multiple times. i must admit, i have never actually played through the story of the modern game, but it is honestly so uninteresting and it does not help me at all, i sometimes just acts as a limiter "no you cant get that, play more story" it sometimes just feels like a unskippable cutscene, if only there was a way of going back and playing the old version and show my friends that pickaxes and drills used to not be useless, and, in fact, where a vital part of progression.

[@PregnantAdamSandler]

I feel like Starbound's core idea of "what if Terraria but atmospheric space game" worked, it's just that the parts surrounding it didn't really do much to heighten that core idea. I think they could have just downsized the game into basically a space farming sim and it would have worked because the atmosphere, block variety, and NPC designs are the strong points of Starbound.

[@meicox3924]

Great video, but getting flashbanged every 10 seconds with white-on-white text/background makes it unwatchable. I almost got mild epilepsy from it lol.

[@robokast]

Thanks for the feedback, is it just the white background that is the problem? Or is the camera shutter effect annoying too?

[@meicox3924]

For me yes the background is the problem but I also believe it's due to the transition between your 'b-roll' footage and the moment the white screen/text appears on screen. There is a flash that is triggering it.

[@torchlight3173]

Basically 2D No Man's Sky before No Man's Sky.

[@Soothsayer_98]

I remember for a while they had a dumb reason for deleting save files (contrary to popular belief they didn't forget to add it, they simply hated the concept of deleting characters thinking they were all alive), every custom character you made was permanent regardless if you gave it a stupid name or got bored of it or fucked up a save and you could never delete it. You had to manually go to the game files on your disk and delete some folders with random numbers on them to get rid of your character, they only added the option to delete them in-game (begrudingly, mind you) after many many complaints.

[@iminumst7827]

Overall good video, but I felt like your dig against procedural content made no sense. It doesn't at all explain why Starbound failed to live up to Terraria, considering Terraria also has procedurally generated worlds. Furthermore, Realms of Magic, a 2D sandbox game with a handcrafted world was a much bigger financial failure than Starbound. The best selling game of all time (Minecraft) is also a procedurally generated sandbox game. I don't see any evidence that people find procedural worlds boring, especially in the sandbox genre where the player has the ability to shape the world. Calling procedural worlds in a sandbox game boring is like calling a blank canvas and amazing set of brushes a boring painting. What makes a good sandbox is creative freedom and fun tools. What really crushes creative freedom is obligations, and there's no bigger obligation than a mission to save the universe. It feels awkward to settle down and build a cabin on a pretty planet when the world needs you. Also being told what's at your location by a quest giver destroys the joy of exploration. Just think, what's more exciting: A (Being told that there's a monster in a bunker, then going to that bunker and saying that monster) or B (Finding a bunker, going inside, and being ambushed by a monster) Sandbox survival games need to careful with pacing, Starbound's gameloop is subtly but notably slow. Terraria rewards the player with new tools more frequently. idk why procedural generation keeps taking strays from video essayists.

[@cyber_stealth9743]

I met these guys in person at EGX in 2023 and I asked them why Starbound updates stopped, they just said they were a small team and didn't elaborate

[@pjAlxn]

when he said "exploiting young volunteers" you have no clue how relieved i was when he said they were working for free

[@greengrendel]

My biggest design complaint is caves were all wrong. Exploring in Terraria is intricate labyrinths with neat finds every few steps. Starbound was mostly tunneling in the dark, occasionally falling into a giant empty cave. Exploring over ground meant trudging through a 1 biome planet until you finally find the one village or lab to loot.

[@KhadiPlays]

I was there when the game first hit early access. They abandoned developing it very fast in favor of adding in twitch support into the game. Somehow they though adding their own OBS directly into the game was better than actually developing said game when it was barebones. Not all but a lot of threads and comments complaining about this on their forum have been deleted by them real time, I watched it happen. It was a sh*t show. I avoid anything they make or sponsor like fire.

[@pinkdice4188]

This is just really unfortunate to see chuckle fish do what they did. I feel like mods are starbounds only life support. Despite it being very unactive. And even then the one of the biggest mods has its own Controversies.

[@cesar9058]

Summary of the video: The main dev was a creep who abandoned the game when it was in a playable state. The game didn't fail, it's pretty good and way better than it was at the start of the project.