[PREVIEW] Star Birds – Relaxing asteroid base-builder from the creators of Dorfromantik

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Three years later and 25,000 overwhelmingly positive reviews, that’s what Toukana Interactive did with Dorfromantik, a peaceful building strategy and puzzle game. Many studios usually achieve a single hit, only to see their later games fall into obscurity or become generic. However, with their new title, Star Birds, a relaxing asteroid base-builder and resource management game, Toukana Interactive once again proves why they’re an indie studio worth following.

In Star Birds, you’ll lead a flock of spacefaring birds through a sci-fi universe. Your goals are to mine asteroids, build production networks, and uncover cosmic mysteries. The game blends cozy, accessible gameplay with strategic depth, taking inspiration from Factorio and Dorfromantik. However, it expands on these ideas by adding automation, exploration, and optimization, all within a campaign-driven story that also offers optional challenge modes.

Positives and negatives

Here’s how you play: you’re given a story and objectives. To complete them, you’ll scan asteroids, mine resources, and build production facilities. Then you need to connect these facilities with hand-drawn pipes to create efficient supply chains, and produce the metals and other items needed for progress. The core idea is to strategically place extractors, processors, and launch pads on unique, rotatable 3D asteroids and their holes.

My favorite aspect of the game is its automation system, an area where many games fall short. Star Birds makes it incredibly satisfying to watch resources flow from extractors to launch pads. As you fulfill quests, you’ll unlock new technologies, which in turn gives you more ways to play. This means complexity is introduced gradually; later quests, for instance, might require multi-step production. Another charming feature is the ability to spawn rovers that collect credits scattered on asteroids, adding a fun, idle-game element.

On the other hand, my main problem is the campaign’s overly linear structure and simplicity, which limits experimentation. While the demo didn’t fully showcase all the aspects, it does offer replayability with procedurally generated asteroids, making each playthrough slightly different, though their current impact is minimal. While quests drive progression, rewarding you with credits, technologies, or medals for optimizing your setups, I’m afraid the game might be overly repetitive with similar mechanics, unless the full release version proves differently.

The demo is available on Steam, and I highly recommend it

Being able to explore and complete multiple asteroids on one larger map is a significant bonus. You can even connect resources between different asteroids and send them to your main base. The game’s design is incredibly thoughtful, perfectly aiding your planning, and the UI is highly accessible, so you’ll rarely feel lost. Its overall simplicity means it’s a very easy game to pick up and play.

Beyond the gameplay, you’ll enjoy a cel-shaded 3D art style heavily inspired by Kurzgesagt’s colorful, bird-centric animations. This extends to charming cutscenes, a much larger story, and humorous dialogue. The overall cozy tone also draws from Kurzgesagt’s minimalist animated educational content, blending flat and 3D design styles.

In the end, Star Birds is shaping up to be a very interesting and unique game, and I’m eager to see how it evolves in its full version. The game is slated for a 2025 release on PC via Steam.