Space Engineers

Space Engineers
Developer(s)	Keen Software House
Engine	VRAGE 2.0
Platform(s)	Microsoft Windows
Release	Oct 23, 2013 (alpha)
Genre(s)	Sandbox, Simulation
Mode(s)	Single-player, Multiplayer

Space Engineers is a voxel-based sandbox game set in space, developed and published by Keen Software House. The game features an open-world environment where players can build various functional structures. The pre-release alpha build was released on October 23 2013 on Steam, featuring a single-player "creative" mode.

History

Development on the Miner Wars franchise began in 2002 as a side project by Marek Rosa, the Founder and current CEO of Keen Software House.[5] In 2009 the project began full-time work and a production team was formed. Originally planned for release in 2011, the production team continued to grow in 2010, and there are currently around 10 core developers both working internally at their headquarters in Prague, and externally in America.

Miner Wars 2081 is running on the VRAGE Voxel game engine built and tailored specifically for the title.[4] The company is also working on the development of VRAGE 2.0,[6] the newest version of the engine and as it has been announced[7] it will be used for the development of their new project called Space Engineers.

Gameplay

Once in-game, the player is given control of a single Space Engineer. Depending on the game-mode and starting map, the player can begin building any one of three structures: Space Station, Large Ship, or Small Ship. Selecting one of these will spawn a block in front of the player to be used as a scaffold for the rest of the structure. Among structural blocks, some blocks can be interacted with to carry out different functions such as mining, refining, healing, and communicating. Alongside the blocks are several tools that can be held and used by players.

Creative Mode

In creative mode, players are able to spawn items and building materials indefinitely and fly ships beyond their power limits.

Technology

Space Engineers runs on the VRAGE engine which drives the collision and destruction physics. VRAGE™ is an in-house game engine developed by Keen Software House.

VRAGE stands for “volumetric rage” and/or “voxel rage”.

VRAGE 1.0 was built and tailored specifically for Miner Wars 2081 and its core feature is the destructible voxel terrain and open-world environment. Full source code available: Github.com VRAGE 2.0 is under development and its core feature is volumetricity of the environment. Volumetric objects are structures composed from block-like modules interlocked in a grid. Volumetric objects behave like real physical objects with mass, inertia and velocity. Individual modules have real volume and storage capacity and can be assembled, disassembled, deformed and destroyed.

Space Engineers is the first title fully utilizing VRAGE 2.0.

System Requirements

	Minimum	Recommended
OS	Microsoft Windows XP	Microsoft Windows 7
Processor	Intel Core2 Duo 2.0 GHz (or AMD equivalent)	Intel Quad Core i5 @ 2.5 GHz (or AMD equivalent)
Memory	2GB RAM	3 GB RAM
Graphics	NVIDIA GeForce 8800GT / ATI Radeon HD 3870 / Intel HD Graphics 4000	NVIDIA GeForce GTX 460/AMD Radeon HD 7800 series
DirectX	9.0c	9.0c
Hard Drive	2GB free HDD space	5GB free HDD space
Audio	DirectX compatible on-board	DirectX compatible on-board

Reception

The alpha version of the game was selected by players to be the fourth best indie game of 2013.

See also

• Moonbase Alpha (video game)

External links

• Official game website
• Official Polish Community
• Official French Community
• German Community Discussion
• Russian Community Discussion

Information page by the Alpha players.

http://spaceengineerswiki.com/Main_Page

Age rating

Space Engineers is an age rating 3+