Upcoming Game: Starbound

First contact with this guy will probably involve lasers.

2013 is shaping up to be an exciting year for indie games. My most anticipated game of 2013 is definitely Starbound. Starbound is an open world sandbox platform game about exploration, collection, combat, and building. Starbound is a new kind of game, but it is similar in some ways to Minecraft, and more so Terraria. However, Starbound is much more directed and story driven than either of those games - you have clear goals which you will probably want to pursue, although you are also free to just sit down and build.

What am I doing in Space?

Home sweet metal-space-can home. For now.

Starbound will start everyone off on an abandoned space station, fleeing the destruction of your homeworld by an as-yet mysterious adversary. Once you start playing, one of the things you will want to do is improve, repair, and upgrade your new space station. Eventually, you may want to found a new homeworld as well, which you will colonize and terraform.

You will be the Krabmikaze Jane Goodall.

Starbound is going to be a game of exploration - you will explore the galaxy and catalog what you find. Starbound will provide the players with the tools to examine and record everything, if they want. Every plant, animal, and weird rock you find will be able to be examined, and some of them will be useful. Maybe that tree can be harvested for an oil you desperately need to fuel your space stations hydraulic centrifugal blackhole machine. 

The Stars are the Limit

Although a lot of things about Starbound are still unknown, the clear thing is that Starbound will be a game about exploration and options for the player. I am personally very excited about Starbound as it looks like it is a new and fascinating type of game, with amazing depth and complexity.

If you are interested in following development on Starbound, check out their website. You can sign up for their monthly newsletter if you want to be kept up to date on developments.