
"We're aware there may be issues with a Steam update crashing the Mac build at the moment," the developer noted. That being said, Chucklefish is still working out the kinks - particularly with the Mac release. It's also added various difficulty levels and permadeath into the game. In the developer's latest patch notes it's claimed that the new Furious Koala update comes with an "absolutely massive changes to disk serialisation, which will allow us to never need to wipe players or ships again, and hopefully never need to wipe worlds again." Ah, I see what it did there.UPDATE: If you've been interested in Chucklefish's intergalactic 2D sandbox Starbound, but have been turned off by the developer's need to wipe players' progress via updates, your worries have been assuaged. The developer mentions something about planet-sized "spaceship dungeons," which have me, almost without thinking, reaching for my wallet. You can read up on some of Starbound's future plans here. If you're hearing about Starbound for the first time, check out our recent look at the beta version, where we learn about Cassandra's journey of “exploration, survival and bloody stupid ways to die.” And just like DayZ, we know there are a lot of changes on the way for the game.


The Starbound beta can be snatched up for $15 either through the game's official website or through Steam's Early Access program.

While both games have some pretty radical differences in tone and setting, they both emphasize open, sandbox-style experiences and are finding huge audiences in spite of their still-evolving development. DayZ creator Dean Hall published an update on Reddit over the weekend revealing that the alpha version of the zombie survival game has sold nearly 800,000 copies in less than a month. Starbound's sales success mirrors another molten-hot, early-access hit of recent weeks, namely the DayZ Standalone alpha.
