Montreal-based Jellyfish Games has announced the commencement of a KickStarter crowd-sourcing program for its survival base-building RPG Astrobase Command. The game features a 70s setting and is considered by the team to be a true sandbox game world. Astrobase Command is being worked on by former Funcom developer Dave Williams.
It's often hard to judge a game by the "back of the box features," because there is no agreed-upon definition for common video game terms. So in order to be perfectly clear about the gameplay in Astrobase Command, here are what a few of the words we use mean to us:
Sandbox -- You can actually go anywhere and do anything, and as a core premise the game is built around making this as true as possible.
Actions have Consequences -- Your choices fundamentally shape the world, and also how the world informs your future actions in a feedback system which extends into all aspects of the game.
RPG -- The game encourages attachment and emotional investment in characters by imbuing them with personality, which is expressed during the moment-to-moment gameplay.
Immersion -- You feel like you're inside the game-world to such a degree you forget you're playing software. The world is credible and the characters behave not as scripted plot devices or bags of stats, but as individuals that live and exist in that world.
Science Fiction -- A setting that explores how technology creates novel predicaments for characters, but can also yield the solution to those same predicaments.
Read more on the Astrobase Command Kickstarter page.