Keen Software was kind enough to provide us with a key for Space Engineers, and below you can find our 15 minutes playthrough. Space Engineers is a sandbox game about engineering, construction and maintenance of space works. Players build space ships and space stations of various sizes and utilization (civil and military), pilot ships and perform asteroid mining.
The game utilizes a realistic volumetric-based physics engine, meaning that all objects can be assembled, disassembled, damaged and destroyed. This will be particularly interesting in the final build as right now there is nothing really spectacular to ‘wow’ you (well, apart from a video that Keen Software released a couple of months ago. Let’s hope that the game will feature various scripted events that will put its physics engine to good use).
Space Engineers is in alpha stage of development. Its current build supports Quickstart and Custom Worlds, and allows players to build small and large ships, as well as new stations. The game at its current form focuses on its core mechanics, like building in creative mode, physics simulations and destruction.
Our first contact with Space Engineers was quite enjoyable (though some will definitely find it a bit boring). Space Engineers is all about creation. Pretty much like Minecraft, you’ll have to let your imagination go wild in order to appreciate it.
Our first attempt at creating a small ship resulted in a big failure the moment we decided to disable our jetback. Such a shame as our ship was shaping up to be something truly… casual. Well yeah, it was not as futuristic or unique as we’d initially expect but it was our damn ship. Bummer.
Space Engineers provides a number of materials and tools to use in order to create your own ships and space stations. At first glance, Space Engineers feel quite simple. Once you start creating your ships though… well, that’s when the real magic kicks in.
Keen Software has released Space Engineers via Steam’s Early Access Program. Naturally, those who purchase it will get immediate access to the game’s alpha build.
Enjoy!
John is the founder and Editor in Chief at DSOGaming. He is a PC gaming fan and highly supports the modding and indie communities. Before creating DSOGaming, John worked on numerous gaming websites. While he is a die-hard PC gamer, his gaming roots can be found on consoles. John loved – and still does – the 16-bit consoles, and considers SNES to be one of the best consoles. Still, the PC platform won him over consoles. That was mainly due to 3DFX and its iconic dedicated 3D accelerator graphics card, Voodoo 2. John has also written a higher degree thesis on the “The Evolution of PC graphics cards.”
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