Limitation is the mother of creativity. It’s an old rule, almost a cliche by today’s standards, yet other games like Space Engineers prove that it holds true. Such games are little more than creative building blocks, forcing the player to use basic items and equipment to craft a life for themselves amid a barren inhospitable environment. Starved of resources and often even basic sustenance, you are tasked with quite literally scratching a living off of rocks; burrowing down into asteroids to retrieve the ore within, before smelting and building new machinery.Rather than the usual A to B to C progression you might expect, the games like Space Engineers specialise in freedom of choice. While there are certainly some starting machines which are infinitely more beneficial than others, there is nothing to stop you skipping those points and jumping ahead to much more fun assets. Or, for the exceptionally brave, stealing what they need from others over personally crafting them. Over time they break free of the survival sandbox tropes, and become 'surthrival' experiences, where you construct a personal empire out of sweat, bloodshed and sheer determination.Outside of the more survival oriented elements, however, the requisite sandbox mode encourages creativity in every way possible. While the sheer number of component parts on offer is enough for players to craft almost any machine they wish, combining and assembling them to forge almost anything you can imagine. Anyone can build a basic hovel, after all, but a gargoyle engraved doom fortress armed with multiple battle turrets and lava gates? That takes a unique kind of genius to pull off. Especially if you make it a castle of the flying variety. Even without that though, basic additions such as varied power generators, salvaging derelict buildings or even repurposing enemy spawners into resource farms can result in both nightmarish and horrifying designs alike.The malleable nature and adaptability of games like Space Engineers can be found within their communities, on Youtube or even in private projects as fans adapt and alter their blueprints. Often, players will recreate or rebuild iconic designs from other franchises or even build mechanical marvels the game was never even designed to support in the first place. It really can become an underlying challenge of almost tricking the game into allowing you to accomplish something the developers never even dreamed of including. That, in of itself, is a victory few other games can offer their players.If you wish to play a game where you start with nothing but can end with everything, or serves as the ultimate creative sandbox, then glance below at games with similar features to Space Engineers.
Space Engineers Force Field
Space Engineers Macross
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