Even though Science and Magic are common knowledge, understanding them both together tends to have them conflict with each other. There is however a game that really uses a very scientific method to successfully explain magic, this game is Astroneer.

Astroneer is a space sandbox game developed by System Era Softworks. In the world of Astroneer, the goal of the game designers is very clear, that goal is to make players happy.  Astroneer is set during the 25th Century in which humans have reached the Age of Discovery. Astroneers explore outer space in the hopes of finding hidden secrets, rare treasures or to solve mysteries awaiting on new planets. The player takes on the role of an astronaut looking for a chance to get rich overnight, driving his own spacecraft to explore and find resources on unfamiliar planets.

First, the player logs on to a procedurally generated planet, carrying a backpack, oxygen tank, rechargeable battery and an interesting gun. This gun is like a huge Vacuum cleaner that can be used to collect materials, change the terrain, etc., What you have is a space capsule and a futuristic 3D printed backpack.

Like other crafting games, the progress of the game requires players to continuously explore and collect new materials.

At the beginning of the game, the space capsule will provide important life supplies for the player in the early stages of their adventure and bring oxygen to the character. If the space capsule is too far away, the player will gradually consume his own oxygen and eventually die. In Astroneer, the character's death is similar to Minecraft. You will lose all the items where you died and then respawn at the base. Of course, you can also retrieve the items, but it could be a long and difficult journey away from the space capsule. 

In the later stages, it is connected to the base through oxygen piles, and the oxygen piles are placed at a certain distance, which can bring a steady stream of oxygen supply for the astronauts, allowing them to go further.

Oxygen piles and connected ropes are made of compound and resin. These two resources can be seen everywhere in the game and are very common. When it comes to resources, in addition to resin and compound, there are copper, aluminum, titanium and lithium. The last four metal elements are relatively scarce. The aim of the game is to gather resources allowing you to build new facilities to make exploration and material gathering much more fluid and efficient.

The main construction material in the initial stage of the base is resin, which can be used to build 3D printers, research modules, vehicle compartments, trading platforms and ore smelters. However, most platforms require metal to build. For this, you may need to mine underground. The terrain tool is the most basic tool for astronauts and allows them to  shape the terrain. There are three modes: drilling (excavation), smoothing (repair) and building terrain (terrain shaping), players can switch between these modes at any time. For some common resources, just click to collect them and put them in the backpack. For some larger resources, you cannot put them in the backpack. Click on them and move them to a target point. Of course, the best way is to transport them via vehicles. 

Players can also choose to mine underground, but the underground cave system is very complicated. At the same time, digging is also very dangerous. It is very likely to cause the ground to crack and cause the character to fall and die. Similar high-altitude falling incidents will often occur during the exploration process. Special attention is needed because every time you die, resources must be reacquired.

Of course, there are many possible reasons for the character's death, including encountering sandstorms, being hit by oncoming flying rocks, encountering poisonous gas and lack of oxygen to name a few.

The  pipelines constructed are not only used for oxygen, but also provide electricity. If you have connected the base to solar panels, wind turbines, or organic generators, the pipelines will continuously fill the power source of your mining tools, which is represented as an orange power slot on your backpack. In addition, metal is not the only resource you can find underground. Some alien plants can also be collected giving players the chance to make new items, such as larger solar panels, and even vehicle parts.

Like traditional sandbox survival games, in the world of Astroneer, we must always pay attention to our various survival indicators, such as how much oxygen you have, whether you have enough food, and your various materials. Will the collection allow you to continue to survive on this planet or should you move on? Astroneer does differ slightly from the traditional sandbox survival game. First of all, its art has a special personality. The game boldly uses the low poly design style. Simply put, it is a high definition pixel art style. The game does not have that kind of realistic high-definition modeling and rendering, but uses a large number of blank polygonal shapes. You can use your imagination to fill in the blanks for yourself. For example a shiny blue triangle actually becomes a diamond.

Having a low poly style doesn’t make Astroneer look generic or basic. On the contrary, the developers optimized the game very well, and were very bold in the use of colors, using a lot of contrast colors and bright contrasts to reflect the pleasant style of the game. This modeling design can make the game smoother and allow even lower end PC’s runs these agme with ease. The configuration for running the game is naturally much lower than those "masterpieces" that "burn the graphics card".The art style may be simple and look less impressive than most games currently being released but it matches this game style very well.

You will experience a Real and Relaxed game experience in the world of Asreoneer. The game designer has shown players a new wonderful scientific view! The games we know that are based on exploring the starry sky and the universe will basically use existing science as the technical support for the game. But Astroneer completely subverted this concept. Existing scientific and technological knowledge is completely disregarded in the world of Astroneer. Regardless of whether players can control spaceships similar to the current rocket satellites, they use them in the game. All kinds of science and technology can be described as magic!

For example, in the world of Astroneer, the gathering gun used by players only needs electricity to collect any matter you encounter on other planets. To quote an evaluation given by game players to express that, "The game is full of settings that are not scientifically logical, such as materials that can be enlarged and reduced at any time, modular components that are almost universal, and can be used when plugged in. According to science fiction fans, Astroneer would be considered as a magic game. 

Although the scientific concept in Astroneer seems unreasonable, players can still get enough fun in it. If you are not a science fiction fan, who cares about this unreasonable setting? For the player, whether it is science fiction or magic, as long as it can bring us fun, this is enough.

The essence and objective of Astroneer is simple, to have fun.

Astroneer