When comparing Contraption Maker vs Starbound, the Slant community recommends Starbound for most people. In the question“What are the best PC games for kids?” Starbound is ranked 17th while Contraption Maker is ranked 30th. The most important reason people chose Starbound is:
Starbound allows the player to go at their own pace while completing the tutorials. By the end of the tutorials the player will have the skills and equipment to succeed in the game and have fun doing it.
Specs
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
Pro Steam Workshop support
Players are able to share their creations as puzzles to everyone else who has this game on Steam, although this can potentially include even sophisticated machines that requires little input, just to see what kinds of amazing things can be created.
Pro 2-player coop
Two players can work together on building a machine at the same time, coming up with all sorts of wacky ideas, or perhaps even getting creative with a "machine vs. machine" type of creation.
Pro Puzzles
There are over 200 puzzles for you to go through and figure out, from simple to complex, and often with one straightforward solution, but several alternate solutions.
Pro Variety of parts
There are over 100 parts to add to your machine, with a wide variety of uses and effects.
Pro No size limit
You can make machines as big as you want, with as many parts as you want. The only bottleneck is how much your own computer can take.
Pro Informative and well paced tutorials
Starbound allows the player to go at their own pace while completing the tutorials. By the end of the tutorials the player will have the skills and equipment to succeed in the game and have fun doing it.
Pro Incredibly deep gameplay
The exploration, crafting and combat are all both very polished and deep in terms of what you can do, especially compared to other games in the genre. This makes the sandbox very fun to play in as you're never really stuck doing the same thing over and over.
Pro Boss levels
For what is a procedurally generated game, Starbound offers boss levels that once beaten unlock new sectors of space to explore.
Cons
Con First few hours can be boring
Initially the player needs to amass enough coal to fuel their ship, which is a bit of a grind.