I give Kerbal Space Program a tentave reccomendation, not because of the quality of the game but because it's a very niche product that I feel has mostly reached the fame it has, because of youtuber letsplays. Don't get me wrong though, this is an absolutely fantastic game. Kerbal Space Program, or KSP features solid gameplay and is quite polished. What it does, it does well, but it doesnt do everything. It's not very easy to pick up without prior knowlege and even more difficult to master. At the time of this writing it has a mountain of support from the devs, a friendly community, and a copious of easy to install mods that can either tweak your gameplay experience or massively overhaul it.

Using broad strokes, KSP could be described as a NASA simulator. You build rockets and spaceplanes from a library of parts and pilot your craft into orbit and beyond allowing you to travel to, land on, and explore distant astral bodies. The game can be broken down to three game modes. Career, where the player must manage money, collect data or "science" to unlock more parts, and gather positive reputation by succeeding, which gives the player access to more lucrative, and difficult contracts. These contracts are the player's avenue to getting more money and positive reputation. Next, there is Science mode. In science mode, money, contracts, and reputation are removed and the player focuses on collecting "science" to march up the tech tree. Finally there is sandbox mode, which gives gives the player all the parts in the game, removes money, reputation, and contracts allowing them free reign to do as they please. I should point out that these game modes are tweakable to make the game easier or more difficult -- it's up to the player.

Rocket and plane construction feels alot like playing with legos. Parts simply click together at preset points. Alas, no system is perfect and sometimes it just doesn't want to cooperate. At no time will the player feel limited in what they can build, unless theyre going for the absolutely ludicrous. There are tricks to getting your craft to be "just so" that the game offers, giving a high degree of control over the final build. It mostly leaves the player to experiment with different building techniques and part placement for whatever they're trying to accomplish. The meat of the fun that KSP offers comes from the player's sense of exploration, adventure, and willingness to learn. The game does offer a tutorial, though most players will find youtube and community forums to be a greater learning and information resource than anything the game itself offers.

New players are more or less bombarded with technical terms from the get-go that may not make sense to someone unfamiliar with rocketry, physics or even the metric system. It's nothing too advanced, mostly stemming from a wide use of acronyms that discribe certain attributes and functions. Granted, it would be silly to use other less percise wordage to discribe things like ISP(specific impulse). But at least to me, it was a little daunting at first. Players are expected to know things like the significance of center-of-mass reletive to center-of-lift. And whats more is that the vanilla game lacks tools to que players into important concepts like "Delta-V" and thrust-to-weight ratios. Though, I ABSOLUTELY MUST stress that all these issues are VERY EASILY remedied with youtube tutorials and/or a few very simple and easy to use mods. It's not so much a hurdle but I feel it may be slightly intimidating to players looking for a very casual experience --there will be learning involved for most people.

At the time of writing the vanilla build of KSP doesnt feature multiplayer but there are easy to find mods that do. The developer has expressed interest in multiplayer but it's somewhat confounded by some of the game mechanics, namely time warp. I do have faith that they will deliver a multiplayer experience, but even if it doesnt come to fruition the community does already have working multiplayer mods. Even if they seem a little barebones from the perspective of someone who doesnt know much about the programming and execution of such things (me). There are also further optimizations in the works that will make KSP a better game, able to better utilize more advanced computers, leading to better performance overall. Thus far the developer has delivered on thier promises, and I dont feel like theres much reason to be cynnical when they say want to add something to the game or when they tweak stock parts.

KSP is a game about trial and error. Even though it offers quicksave and quickload mechanics, It asks patience of the player first and foremost. The more familiar the player is with the mechanics of the game the more oppertunities open for either great feats of finesse and percision or wacky misadventures. The game itself doesnt do much to pat you on the back when you accomplish something like landing on the moon for the first time, its very unceremonious. The gratification comes from within player. It's ultimately thier willingness to learn, try and retry, scrap once promising ideas, and thier perservierence that drives the game. It's gratification comes from the "I finally did it!" and "It works!" moments plucked from a minefield of moments where everything seems to go wrong at once. It's easy for the gameplay to feel repetitive, but as long as the player keeps pushing for bigger more out of this word objectives whether theyre self imposed or handed to them by the game, the sense of accomplishment never really fades.

I dont think I could recommend this to everyone. But If you have even a passing interest in rocketry or space travel Kerbal Space Program is a game made for the engineer and the astronaut in you.

I give Kerbal Space Program a tentave reccomendation, not because of the quality of the game but because it's a very niche product that I feel has mostly reached the fame it has, because of youtuber letsplays. Don't get me wrong though, this is an absolutely fantastic game. Kerbal Space Program, or KSP features solid gameplay and is quite polished. What it does, it does well, but it doesnt do everything. It's not very easy to pick up without prior knowlege and even more difficult to master. At the time of this writing it has a mountain of support from the devs, a friendly community, and a copious of easy to install mods that can either tweak your gameplay experience or massively overhaul it. Using broad strokes, KSP could be described as a NASA simulator. You build rockets and spaceplanes from a library of parts and pilot your craft into orbit and beyond allowing you to travel to, land on, and explore distant astral bodies. The game can be broken down to three game modes. Career, where the player must manage money, collect data or "science" to unlock more parts, and gather positive reputation by succeeding, which gives the player access to more lucrative, and difficult contracts. These contracts are the player's avenue to getting more money and positive reputation. Next, there is Science mode. In science mode, money, contracts, and reputation are removed and the player focuses on collecting "science" to march up the tech tree. Finally there is sandbox mode, which gives gives the player all the parts in the game, removes money, reputation, and contracts allowing them free reign to do as they please. I should point out that these game modes are tweakable to make the game easier or more difficult -- it's up to the player. Rocket and plane construction feels alot like playing with legos. Parts simply click together at preset points. Alas, no system is perfect and sometimes it just doesn't want to cooperate. At no time will the player feel limited in what they can build, unless theyre going for the absolutely ludicrous. There are tricks to getting your craft to be "just so" that the game offers, giving a high degree of control over the final build. It mostly leaves the player to experiment with different building techniques and part placement for whatever they're trying to accomplish. The meat of the fun that KSP offers comes from the player's sense of exploration, adventure, and willingness to learn. The game does offer a tutorial, though most players will find youtube and community forums to be a greater learning and information resource than anything the game itself offers. New players are more or less bombarded with technical terms from the get-go that may not make sense to someone unfamiliar with rocketry, physics or even the metric system. It's nothing too advanced, mostly stemming from a wide use of acronyms that discribe certain attributes and functions. Granted, it would be silly to use other less percise wordage to discribe things like ISP(specific impulse). But at least to me, it was a little daunting at first. Players are expected to know things like the significance of center-of-mass reletive to center-of-lift. And whats more is that the vanilla game lacks tools to que players into important concepts like "Delta-V" and thrust-to-weight ratios. Though, I ABSOLUTELY MUST stress that all these issues are VERY EASILY remedied with youtube tutorials and/or a few very simple and easy to use mods. It's not so much a hurdle but I feel it may be slightly intimidating to players looking for a very casual experience --there will be learning involved for most people. At the time of writing the vanilla build of KSP doesnt feature multiplayer but there are easy to find mods that do. The developer has expressed interest in multiplayer but it's somewhat confounded by some of the game mechanics, namely time warp. I do have faith that they will deliver a multiplayer experience, but even if it doesnt come to fruition the community does already have working multiplayer mods. Even if they seem a little barebones from the perspective of someone who doesnt know much about the programming and execution of such things (me). There are also further optimizations in the works that will make KSP a better game, able to better utilize more advanced computers, leading to better performance overall. Thus far the developer has delivered on thier promises, and I dont feel like theres much reason to be cynnical when they say want to add something to the game or when they tweak stock parts. KSP is a game about trial and error. Even though it offers quicksave and quickload mechanics, It asks patience of the player first and foremost. The more familiar the player is with the mechanics of the game the more oppertunities open for either great feats of finesse and percision or wacky misadventures. The game itself doesnt do much to pat you on the back when you accomplish something like landing on the moon for the first time, its very unceremonious. The gratification comes from within player. It's ultimately thier willingness to learn, try and retry, scrap once promising ideas, and thier perservierence that drives the game. It's gratification comes from the "I finally did it!" and "It works!" moments plucked from a minefield of moments where everything seems to go wrong at once. It's easy for the gameplay to feel repetitive, but as long as the player keeps pushing for bigger more out of this word objectives whether theyre self imposed or handed to them by the game, the sense of accomplishment never really fades. I dont think I could recommend this to everyone. But If you have even a passing interest in rocketry or space travel Kerbal Space Program is a game made for the engineer and the astronaut in you.