Other items seem much more difficult to find, such as iron. Whilst exploring there are resources that are located on the surface of the planet that you can gather using the terrain tool – resources such as “compound” and “resin” are the most abundant and used the most in early recipes. In fact, resource gathering is very confusing in general. Other items and their functions aren’t so clear, and so in the early hours I felt a little hampered by my anxiety about what best to spend my precious bytes and resources on, particularly as some of the resources required seemed super rare and difficult to find, some even requiring you to travel to another planet. Some are obvious such as a large printer which allows you to craft larger items, or a smelting furnace that will transform the items you find into another resource. The amount of recipes can be overwhelming, and there is no real explanation as to what each item does and why you will need it. Once you have amassed enough you can then spend them on new recipes. Larger items can be brought back to your base and, if you have a Research Station built, examined for significant amounts of bytes.
This resource is found by scanning the alien flora or small minerals. The crafting is achieved through the acquisition of “bytes”.
Once you have exhausted the exploration within reasonable walking distance from your home you can craft vehicles to take you further and carry more resources. These tethers have an organic feel to them, almost like the trail of mucous a snail leaves behind it, or perhaps a spider’s web of interconnected gossamer lines detailing the path of your exploration, but always leading back to the safety of your base. The tethers connect to your home base, snaking out in the different directions you have headed off in to search for resources. That solution is through the use of tethers, an extendible lifeline that can be crafted from the obscurely named “compound” that can be hoovered up from the ground via your terrain tool. You can make bigger storage, of course, allowing you to roam just that little bit further from the safety of your base, but if you really want to explore you are going to have to look at a better solution.
When you are near your base you have a tube leading from your suit to your base delivering you the air you breathe as well as power to be able to craft things and use your terrain tool, but wander too far from that lifeline and you will be at the mercy of your on-board oxygen and power cells, both of which have very limited capacity. Survival is limited in that there is very little sense of threat, there are some plants that might cause you trouble and you are always in danger of falling into a cave and struggling to get out, but by far your biggest obstacle to overcome is your oxygen supply. A brief, optional tutorial will take you through some of the basics. Much like in Minecraft there is no random matchmaking to enter other people’s worlds as this is very much a friendly, co-operative experience. You can play on your own or team up with a friend. However, there is a real sense of aimlessness, particularly in the early hours, that starts to creep in and dampen the enthusiasm for exploring. A serene exploration game with crafting and building elements, a cutesy aesthetic AND set in space? Sign me up! The reality is pretty much that, too beautiful art direction and playful, toy-like character and object design make it a joy to play. I missed Astroneer when it was first released back in February, which is a surprise because it is precisely the sort of game that I am immediately drawn to.
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