Today I successfully put together my first ever game trailer and published the game I have been working on for the past 6 months on itch.io.

Trailer: https://imgur.com/a/5FAyCZg

About the Game

It is a spacecraft building sandbox game, heavily inspired by Celestial Command. Your job is to build and command a small spaceship. Using this ship (and your superior knowledge of realistic orbital maneuvering) you can fly between stations, accept quests and trade materials to upgrade your creation.

Background

This game is part of my bachelors thesis about video game quest design. As such it will collect data (opt-in) about the generated quests, which quest you chose and will ask you for feedback. It would be immensly helpful for me, if you could take a look at it, play a quest or two and fill out the (in-game) survey about it.

How to get started

The in-game tutorial will guide you through the steps of building a spacecraft, docking to a station and accepting quests. The most difficult parts of the game are probably the flight and orbital mechanics. Remember that in space you always need to brake your craft manually, since no drag will slow you down. Be sure to activate the velocity- and navigation-indicators in the top bar and only fly shorter distances (<20km) until you get the hang of the orbital mechanics. There is also a small FAQ available.

Some Ship Designs for Inspiratio

Beginner Building Tip: Notice that all those ships have multiple thrusters to the front and back, which allow for easy rotation around the yaw axis. The thrusters to the left and right are instead aligned with the center of mass, to avoid thrust to the sides inducing unwanted rotation.