The Starmade Alpha – My God, it’s full of Blocks…
Minecraft was fun for a few hours. Eventually though, after the final blocks are placed in my wood and stone villa overlooking the sea, the sad truth of my endeavor starts to sink in – it’s all utterly pointless. At least with Lego you can at least pretend the things you build have function, but in the almost-endless forests of Notch’s masterpiece, it’s a case of build and move on.
Starmade is a little different. It lets you build fully functioning star-ships, stations and planetary complexes, fight pirates and other players, all in an infinite void. And it makes you use the word “blocks” uncomfortably often.
I am making the connection between Starmade and Minecraft early because… well, look at it. It looks like an overly ambitious mod for the latter, and often even feels like it. But where Minecraft sets you free in an essentially unchanging landscape with the tools to settle in and build pretty things, Starmade plops you in an endlessly moving universe with the bare essentials required to build a ship, then throws pirates at you.