Astroneer is a planet and space exploration game with a mixture of crafting and survival elements on procedurally generated planets. It was finally released in Steam's Eearly Access in 16th December and I have been anxiously waiting for this game for a long time. When I saw the first pictures and trailers, it instantly gave me the sense of freedom and exploration on a grand scale that I have been craving. And of course, I have been very excited these past days when we all can finally set out to seek our destiny in this curious universum.

As I'm writing this review the game is still in very early development stage and weird bugs and nasty surprises are bound to happen. I was fully aware of this and knew the current annoyances would not keep me from having fun!

So, it all starts with you selecting your hero and landing down to an unexplored planet. Game briefly gives you couple tips how to do things and after that you're on your own. When I got the game, it wasn't even released yet and I enjoyed very much the fact that there were no guides around or too much hand holding within the game. You had to figure stuff out yourself and the system on the background is quite unique and requires at least some focusing for it to be mastered.

Your tasks in the game vary between material collecting for crafting, base building and expanding, researching new types of tech and building more complex stuff. At first you jog around like a humble space peasant, dropping down lifesaving tether lines that lead into resource sites and tunnels. Then you start driving around in small rovers, then bigger trucks and you can even hook these into each other to make trailer combinations. Soon your tether worries are over and your vehicles own life support is enough to keep your lungs well oxygenized!

All the vehicles and the various gizmos you can install into them require power of course and you can juice them up with solar panels, wind turbines and extra batteries to keep going on. You can scoop up some energy nodes from ground too - or use a bio fueled generator on your vehicle to give it a boost of energy.

What I like especially in Astroneer is how your vehicles have certain type of equipment slots and the possibilities of you micro managing them. You can play around with them whenever you like, tear your cargo and items down and change everythings' places on a whim.

I had this scenario dozen times, where my truck was full of supplies, miles deep in the underground tunnels and heading back home. The vehicles store up only so much energy, so eventually I ran out of juice. I tear down a fully loaded cargo module, drop it on the ground while I grab a generator from my suit's shoulder, slam it in the truck's side and give it some time to recharge batteries. Once I'm good to go, I snap the cargo module back on and keep on truckin. Later on, I of course fine tuned my truck with solar panels, a wind turbine and a generator with enough biofuel to go with it.

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=820419404

The graphic style, animations and visual effects are all very appealing. I love the edgy, simplified and clean style of the game and it all ties well together with the soundtrack. The soundtrack is there, but it's not really stealing away your attention from the game itself - and yet after hours and hours of listening to it you still don't get annoyed by it.

I visited all the seven planets the game currently has and they all have their own biome and special weather effects and dangers. The terrain on a barren planet is dusty, sandy and well… Barren, with little vegetation. Arctic planet has a chilly and very rough terrain, where moving around in vehicle is pretty much impossible. And all this time when you adventure on various planets, you can see the other planets in midst of starts when you look up into the night sky.

It took me 24 hours in 3 different days to rummage through most of the current content and to figure out all the bells and whistles. I would have done it probably sooner too, but I had to start a fresh game 3 times due to one savegame file not loading up anymore and on the second savegame my character was stuck inside a building. (Can't destroy buildings or anything you build at least for now) Again, nasty early access symptoms but nothing major to worry about. System Era has been pushing out solid patches on daily bases and they DO listen to your troubles as long you report the bugs on a proper channel: their own forums.

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=820434992

Crafting in Astroneer in pretty simple and straight forward. You build various kinds of workstations and they all serve their own purpose. Smelter smelts ores, Printer "prints" various modules and items on resource materials, Vehicle Bay allows you to build Rovers, Trucks, Shuttles and even Spaceships that can punch through starting planets' orbit to expand your colony into other planets. Research station unlocks new technologies like new vehicles, gear, modules etc.

Like vehicles, these workstations require energy too - and of course resources depending on what you're about to build. You can fine tune your bases energy needs with solar panels, wind turbines and extra energy bank. Solar panels don't generate energy at night, wind turbines won't spin if there's no wind. Yeah, duh. But I like the attention to these details. And these are all detachable, movable items so you can switch their places depending on your base needs and they fit in vehicles too.

The starting planet's surface has more than plenty of basic materials available. The harder metals are underground and there's tunnel entrances almost everywhere to be found. The rarest materials can only be found via researching various strange items found in the world. They can be in a form of giant seeds, roots, crates, glowy rocks etc. Once you get off the starting planet, these rare materials can also be found on planet's surface areas and they require more advanced drilling mechanisms for you to collect them.

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=821109136


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At the moment - once you have unlocked all the tech and built most things, there's really no "need" to leave the starting planet. Not much will change in the game - the planets all have the same materials so the only valid reason at the moment is to see the sights and explore new areas. I have no idea about the game's future plans, but I do see it brightly lit. Astroneer is one of those 'good vibe games', where you can truly relax, have fun by yourself or with friends and family. Game has no violence: you don't shoot or smack or kill anything in it - though the nature and elements on planets vary and they can kill you if you're not cautious enough. Luckily death is no permanent, so just jog back to the unlucky previous You and you can save your precious items and continue your adventures.

I am eagerly waiting for some minor bug fixes that gave grey hairs to my cute Astronaut and of course more content - any and all kinds of! I want to keep playing Astroneer more.