Kerbel Space Program

A couple of months ago I picked up Kerbel Space Program on Steam. It's part of Steam's early access program, which lets gamers purchase a game still in development to help fund indie studios. In return, these studios give gamers access to the early alpha and beta builds of the game.

I bought Kerbel Space Program after being urged to do so by my friend. He had been playing it obsessively which led me to believe that it was more than just a half broken alpha build of something that didn't work yet. Indeed I was correct, as KSP was already remarkably polished by the time I started playing it a couple of months ago.

Kerbel Space Program pulls of an interesting trick, it reminds me of some of the best physics based games of my childhood, while remaining completely original. In it's current form, KSP is essentially a sandbox, allowing players to design and build multistage rockets which can then be fired towards the moon, or other celestial bodies.

KSP is both accessible and rigorously a simulation. The tone is generally light and cutesy. There are no humans, the player instead taking control of little green men (Kerbels) who wish to fly to the "mun."

The rocket designer takes a cue from Spore's Creature Creator. Pieces are picked out with the mouse and simply dragged into place. Everything is laid out nicely and intuitively and there are lots and lots of pieces available with which to create rockets (and more available with mods.)

Once a rocket is completed, players are invited out to the launch pad to try and send their rocket up into space. This is where the game starts to really bear its simulation teeth. There is an immediate sense of heft and players are given an idea of just how much fuel it takes to escape into orbit. Too heavy a craft will have trouble lifting off without more rockets, but more rockets means more fuel, ballooning weight out to the point where structural integrity begins to become a problem. Players must find the sweet spot between these factors if they want to have any hope of making it into orbit.

Once airborne, players must compete with the atmosphere for a while where winglets and aerodynamic aids are essential. Once in space, the player is invited to open up their map screen where they can zoom in and out and have a better view of the solar system. The map screen is both incredibly helpful and essential to gameplay. It gives players a perfect view of their current trajectory while simultaneously allowing them to control their craft, initiate burns and speed up or slow down time. A smart player can use the map to manipulate orbits and eventually end up where they want to go.

I put twenty plus hours into KSP and never managed to land anything. It was not the main focus of my sandboxing, but I know it is possible to do so, as my friend gloated to me by sending a screenshot over of his landed space craft on Mun. The few times I did try landing reminded me of the old 2D game Lunar Lander of which there have been many variations. Of course the Kerbel version is in 3D and is thus much much more difficult.

As often happens with this game, I was reminded of my childhood glory days while playing KSP. At different times KSP has evoked everything from Microsoft Flight Simulator, to X-Plane, to even the old Glider series. At every turn, I feel like KSP is taking its cues from the classics of the genre.

The fact that I played twenty plus hours of an unfinished game should be indicative of the hard work that went into and continues to go into Kerbel Space Program. The truth is that there's even more to the game that I haven't gone into. There's an entire space plane builder separate from the rockets and orbital navigation is practically its own highly complex but ultimately intuitive mini game. I'm excited for the eventual full release of KSP, but highly encourage anyone who is interested in physics, rocketry or astronomy to pick up the early access version of the game. It's shaping up really nicely.