Rock, Paper, Shotgun

You wait thirty years for a indie game project to be barraged by fans after saying they were going to charge for DLC and then changing their minds as a consequence, and then you forget how this sentence even began. In the case of Squad, who make the ship-building-and-flying space sim Kerbal Space Program, this occurred after fan misinterpretation of the promise that all “updates” would be free. For 3 Sprockets’ Cubeman 2, it was the use of in-game purchases in promotional material for the main game that caught players’ ire. Both have had diplomatic changes of heart.

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“Oh boy! I can finally get into prison early!” Oh videogames, don’t ever stop allowing me to create phrases of such ear-perking outlandishness that people could mistake me as ringleader of a merry band of elves. Other gems now possible thanks to Steam’s paid-alpha-centric Early Access program include “Hooray! Frighteningly authentic war’s happening even sooner than I thought” and “I wasn’t planning on being shipwrecked with no hope of escape today, but I certainly can’t complain.” But Prison Architect, Arma 3, and Under The Ocean are only three of the 12 inaugural games on offer. The rest – and perhaps even some freshly baked wordthinks – are after the break.

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As you probably know by now, Kerbal Space Program is a game about getting tiny alien people into the heavens. It comes with calamities and accidents. It comes with great victories and visions of orbital accomplishment. They’ve announced a new demo. That means you should download and play it if you haven’t already. Gameplay video belooooooooooow. And you can read the developers explain themselves here.
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So I just wanted to remind everyone that this exists. I totally get that some of you guys don’t want to pretend to design rockets and then run your own private space program, and that’s fine. You keep on lining up three zombies until they disappear or whatever it is you are into. For everyone with their head in orbit there’s still Kerbal Space Program, which continues to develop apace, and remains a gem of physics-based experimentation. I’ve posted the trailer for not quite the most recent update below, but I am keenly aware that its sensible breakdown of the new features is not what is most appealing about this game, which is actually the breakdown of, well, everything else. I’ve added in a video for that, too.
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Watching the final shuttle launch last week had me thinking about how I would have to look for a game about managing a space program, so that I could post relevantly here on RPS. I never got around to looking for one, but it turned up in my inbox from a dozen sources anyway. The game is called Kerbal Space Program and it’s about building rockets (in a Spore-like rocket-building editor) and trying to get aliens called “Kerbals” into space. The game comes with a full SDK and even though it’s only been out for a few weeks, people are already modding in new bits and pieces to play with. Right now the game features a host of rocket-building systems, along with a 600km planet to try and get into orbit from. Try being the significant part of that sentence: because failure is part of the fun. Long term, the team are planning moon landings, bases on other worlds, and a detailed astronaut recruitment and training management subgame. It’s certainly promising stuff.

You can download it, and also watch amusing illustrative videos below.
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