Stardust Origins

This plays like mid-90's games down to the feeling of experimental coding, the biggest issue I encountered in my brief playtime: Your ship supposedly only fires when clicking 'space' yet it also fires when using LMB, even if that is to try and click menus. Which tends to result in local security forces giving you a fine. The above mixed with a bland first impression (I popped around 20 different 'planets' with little interactive difference), it very swiftly failed to hook me and the issues with the basic design wore down what hopes I had for an enjoyable experience. That said I've played far to many sandbox simulator games and may just have to high expectations, if you want to play the game primarely for the story told, this may just be the game for you.

Good: - A lot of configurable options incl. all keys - Your space ships flies very well - Ok graphics - The UI is easy to read - Ok music - A lot to do in the game, lot of things to explore (almost too many things) - A great story Bad: - The graphics - They are a bit dated - Not optimized for 4K screens. Had to play it on my 2560x1440 instead I can highly recommend this!

Challenging. There is trading, stock market, law enforcement, spaceship battles, missions etc. so plenty options to progress and develop your ship to be effective on missions. Retro wipe, with smooth, satisfying animations. Work well on 21:9 3440x1440 monitor. Real easy to get into. Recommended if you like the genre.

Stardust Origins is not a pretentious game. I think that the best word I can use to describe it is [b]functional[/b]. This is a sub-refund period review; I'm planning to finish the game because I love it but time is of a limited supply. Gameplay: 7.5/10 [b]SO is a light space sim with limited gameplay elements. Trading. Story quests. Limited mission types at message board and a bounty board to help find enemies that have have bounties on them. Buy and sell ship, ship equipment and weapons for your one and only ship that can be used and controlled.[/b] Endgame unknown to me although I have no reason to expect one. There are some tutorials popups but for the most part you are left to your own device in a relatively simple game world. My experience of it is limited but it does show nice touches here and there. By example: I took a mission to to carry a message to somewhere. On my way I got shot down by an enemy ship saying you can't just fly around with information like that and was promptly shot down. Felt very good! Same thing when news broke out, paper journal style, of a new system being discovered. Quality of Life: 6.5/10 [b]If you don't do something new, it should be done well and while the game is fully serviceable, it doesn't go very far in making it convenient to play.[/b] Trading is the meat of this sort of game yet there is no in-game quality of life support to keep track of any of it. The UI is too often in the way. You generally can't use Escape or a custom key to leave menus and have to hunt little X's and buttons like "Leave Station". The default keyboard scheme is from another time and will need rebinding. There is no option to auto-move, set waypoints or use any kind of auto-pilot like go to X, follow Y or set trade route Z. Graphics: 6.5/10 [b]Some of the nicer touches include the user interface, which is of good quality visually speaking, the creation of an avatar for your character at the start of the game and that nice retro feeling.[/b] Unfortunately the various ships (almost completely) blend together while weapon effects and hits on the enemy feel extremely underwhelming, and generally too speed up. Movement and Combat: 5/10 [b]Probably the worst aspect of the game for me. There are no side thrusters, no reverse and no way to lock speed. At least partly forward you go, all the time.[/b] So not only are you constantly struggling to adjust speed but you have no option to match that of your enemy. There seem to be many options that one can buy to make combat more fun [b]but[/b]... at the start it's just you and the enemy flying past each other. There is no option for the zoom factor to adjust to your target either, which is aggravating at least, again, at the start. Music and Sound: 6/10. I can confirm that there is music and sound. The most important thing in my opinion would be to be able to have at least one memorable track, which to me personally didn't happen. Price: 7/10: [b]How does one rate a labor of love? I assume that roughly 95% of the core work is done by a single programmer. So the price is fair for the work.[/b] The lack of a demo make for a somewhat though sale and I don't consider the refund period a demo. If there was a demo, I would rate the price around 8.5/10. There are always sales, right?

I am following this game for many months already. This game cleary does not fit my type of gaming, because I am just too impatient and you can explore such a huge universe in this game. The effort the dev took to implement so many different things is amazing. You can trade goods or stocks, try to follow the story or do just some sidemissions, upgrade your spaceship and go for a bounty hunt. If you are patient enough (not like me :D ) I am sure you will have a lot of fun with this game.

I really enjoyed playing this retro styled game. There are many quests to fulfill, and a big universe to explore. The fact that you can form your own adventure makes this game super fun!

I really like this game! It somehow feels like Star Control 2 meets Elite. I feel like I've only scratched the surface and look forward to working my way up to some bigger ships and bigger missions.

Fun game, i wish more games would just take the simple approach get a firm foundation and then build on that. Plays like the old Elite games but in 2d, plenty to do.

Huge and procedurally generated, Stardust Origins will keep you occupied for hours! Unfortunately, I don't have the patience for doing more grind than I already do, but if you would like a deep 2D Elite / Escape Velocity-esque game, with varied and complex economics and tons of details, get this game!

If exploring space and solving puzzles is your thing, then Stardust is your go-to-game. See it as a 2D remake of the old Elite Frontier game, but with a good adventure story!