If Edge of Space seems familiar, you’re not alone in thinking so. The game, which was funded through a successful Kickstarter campaign just last year, is currently in beta and firmly following in the footsteps of titles like Minecraft and Terraria (and drawing comparisons to this year’s Starbound - though Edge of Space came first). Such is the influence of Terraria that the team from Handyman games, makers of Edge of Space, has teamed up with Terraria to produce crossover content. So, aside from the similarities in this genre that has been carved out over the past several years, there has to be something to make this game stand out from others.
The developers describe the game as “a 2D survival, exploration, terraforming, crafting, and building game. It places you in a dynamic open-world sandbox where you must build, create, mold, and work to survive in the deepest, darkest, weirdest, and possibly most interesting part of the "un-known" universe. The world itself is alive, and working against you”. And that does sum it up pretty well. If you’ve played some of these other sandboxes and kicked around a few grains, you’ll have the basics down here too. You find yourself a representative of ArkCo, dropped in a cryo-pod into the far reaches of space, where you must collect resources, dig, and learn to craft items and tools that will change your environment, allow you to build better and more efficiently, and more. Of course, all is not as easy as that, especially given the day-night cycle. While the deeper you dig and the further you go, you’re likely to find some creatures that want to do you harm in the daylight, they’re easily dispatched. At night, however….things get a little bit trickier. As in other games, the real nasties come out at night and in the dark depths, but in this game, pretty much everything is set to be against you by default. Everything’s trying to kill you. Burn the invader!
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As the game is currently still in a running beta, expect to find some issues. Development on the game has shifted almost wholly right now to the upcoming multiplayer, so some of the bugs and quirks of design, as well as errors will persist for a while. Don’t expect polish just yet. Even the tutorial isn’t even finished. I had to go read outside guides from both the Edge of Space wiki and other sources just to prepare for the first hour or so of game experience. The tutorial being incomplete and all, it took me time to even realize how to properly insert items into my quickbar, and even that felt annoyingly clunky. Here’s hoping that future changes once the multiplayer development goals are met do include UI improvements.
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Character creation is really lacking so far, as there are only a couple of heads for either the male or female avatar that you can barely make out. You cannot choose your skin color, so you’d better like playing as a white person. I chose from some of the bare options and set out to bring Ceylon, purple-haired space explorer, into the world of Sinensis.
