This is great. My kids are very much into minecraft. I am very much into rust.
I would love to help them make the step from playing games to hacking on games. This was very simple back when I was a kid, but is quite hard now. The games you can make are so much less impressive than the games they are used to.
I was also very attracted to this game, but then I found out it's really an RPG and there is no (real) building of any kind. I don't really know anyone who wants to play a procedural generated blocky-RPG they can't modify the environment of :/
The procedural generation somehow instantly provides a sense of mystery, that makes you want to discover what this "fresh" world has to offer. Like Minecraft, the unexplored feeling adds a sense of adventure, that is hard to mimic in a handcrafted map.
When you climb over a hill and are greeted with an amazing view, you feel like you are experiencing something unique, instead of the exact same curated sensation all the other players of the game will be having.
The fact that you cannot destroy every block in it does make the game feel more solid. The freedom you have in a game like Minecraft also limits certain gameplay aspects: you can always dig a hole and hide.
Personally I don't mind the lack of building options at all. It's fun, but it can get a bit grindy when you are trying to create something big in survival mode.
It was such a shame Cube World never got anywhere, I'm glad this is here to pick up where that left off!
See? This is why today's kids making me jealous. Back when I was just a ~10 years old, I couldn't even found a game that worth playing (through I'm picky) and also supports modding, let alone a full open-sourced game written in a programming language that I'm interested in.
Imagine I started learning Rust at 10 years old...
I would love to help them make the step from playing games to hacking on games. This was very simple back when I was a kid, but is quite hard now. The games you can make are so much less impressive than the games they are used to.