The game 'Starbound' 

After researching into the indie game company Chucklefish I continued on with my research to find out more about the game we would be focusing on for our promo art art test. The game we are focusing on is the two dimensional, pixel style exploration game Starbound. It began as a 'Kickstarter' project in early 2012 and was available for pre order in April 2013 and within the first 24 hours of the pre order release over 10,000 people contributed to backed the game, raising a grand total of $230,000 which went towards the games development. The finished game was released on December 4th, 2013 for beta testing on via the pc. It now has a wide range of different 'PlayStation' platforms which it can be played on for example the PlayStation 4 and the PlayStation vita although it hasn't spread to any other consoles so far. A while after is was released the game won two different awards which were the 'Most anticipated game of 2013' and the 'No.1 of indie of the year 2013'.

Starbound is a adventure, role playing video game which can be played either by a solo player or with multiple players. The game allows the player to do similar things to what you would find in a much larger three dimensional game. The player can explore the games environments and discover items such as weapons, armour or miscellaneous items. What's different about this game is that is all done completely via pixel are and side scrolling so it has a very simplistic cartoon feel to it which gives the game some edge compared to many other role playing games. The player can also pick and choose from seven different variety races to play as throughout the process of the game with a randomised customisation feature to give your character more of a personal flair.

The plot of Starbound shifts slightly as to which race you choose but overall the beginning structure of the story line is the same. You start your journey as your chosen character travelling in a spaceship as the flee their home world. As your ship has no navigation systems you end up being hurtled into the depth of space and become hopefully lost. With pure luck on your side the space shuttle crashes down onto a planet which is habited by a vast array of creatures. As your character discovers this new unknown world you stumble across both quests and story driven missions which help to progress the story and gameplay of Starbound.

Throughout the game there were be a variety of different planets for the player to explore which are procedurally generated which you can get to with a brand new ship customisable ship.  Each planet has its own unique features, terrain, foliage, weather, day/night, gravity, levels and enemy appearances. This gives the player a large variety of environments to explore, keeping gameplay interesting and ever progressing.