Game Development Reference
In-Depth Information
Kerbal Space Program
How it's like Minecraft:
It's all about piecing things together and trying new builds.
Though there's not the same kind of first-person free-roam experience, Kerbal's system of
building and low-res graphics scratch the same itch that Redstone engineering or creating
complex buildings can in Minecraft.
Note:
There was a major update to
Kerbal Space Program
just as this topic was going to
print, so some of the images here are out of date. That's a good thing, because there's more
to do in this game now, and it was already super fun!
Kerbals! They're teeny, they're green, they're adorable goofballs, and they just wanna go
to space.
Kerbal Space Program,
or
KSP,
is a game all about building rockets and other
vehicles to put these little green guys up through their planet's atmosphere and beyond. Your
job is to design the ships that take them there and the vehicles they use when they get where
they're going, whether that's a shuttle to go to a space station or a lander that'll set down on
a planet and drop a little rover off.
All of this is done through a very fun system of quests and resource-acquiring, which is tied
into the missions that you undertake. Do well in your missions and achieve the goals set
in front of you, and you'll unlock more parts to build cooler rockets and ships and other
vehicles. Each Kerbal astronaut you have gets a history and skills as well, and you can fol-
low their teeny careers as you expand Kerbal reach into space.
Doing that, though- actually getting Kerbals into space and back alive- is not an easy task. In
fact, we'd say that this game is really for those who have a deep love for astronomy, rocket-
ships and aeronautics, engineering or all three. That's not to say it's not fun for most people
to play, it's just really complex and hard to master. Essentially, it's a very cute-looking thing
that's a game on the surface, but in reality is a rocketship construction and flight simulator.
You'll tangle with weight distribution and centers of thrust, nudging rockets into correct or-
bits, aerodynamics and many more hard science issues as you play Kerbal, making it a game
