own. “Make your dream come true”
was a program for it’s employees
where they could present any idea
they had to the company and if
the bosses liked it, they’d come on
board and help to realize that dream
if possible.
Remember, Squad was a marketing company. They have no experience in the world of video games. So
to take on something so out of their
field was ambitious, scary and most
of all brave. All great things start with
an idea. You have a great idea then
99% of the work is done. Squad knew
they would be learning as they went,
but nurturing its employees and
good ideas was worth it.
Falanghe’s pitch started out
simple. “The first idea I pitched was
actually 2D…. it could have been
done in Flash. Basically you built a
space craft, and tried to launch it as
high as it would go… and that was
basically it. It was kind of like a high
score game.”
But with great ideas, it started becoming grander in scope. Iteration
after iteration, the game went from
just launching a rocket, to recovering
the rocket, to full on space flight and
galactic exploration. And isn’t that
how all real space programs started?
Kerbal has a hugely active fan
base. During its beginning stages,
it rapidly gained a dedicated fan
base that seemed to turn an eye
to the parts of the game that were
unfinished. Once it was released on
Steam - a PC games platform - during the spring of 2013, it grew to be
one of the top 5 best selling titles on
the “early access” part of the site,
which also earned it a new influx
of players. The game is a work in
progress with regular updates being
released by Squad as well as the
hundreds of ever hanging mods and
additions available from the player
community.
The game has an endearing and
jovial touch to it. The workers in the
space programs are actually little
green characters called Kerbals.
They operate the Kerbal Space
Center (KSC), located on Kerbin the world they live in. They write in
English, but have their own language
(a backwards Spanish known as
“lonapsE”), that game players get
to hear them speak when they are
in the Astronaut Complex, in trailers
for the game, or at the end credits
theme.
Everything about the Kerbals
seems to be “Kerbalized” to really
give the little green guys their own
unique character description. Aside
from a select number of Kerbals that
are pre-named, the rest of the species is named using “Kerman” as the
last name, and a first name built out
of a mixture of phonetic syllables or
words chosen from a list of supplied
names to choose from. The Kerbal
species is even called “Kerbalkind”.
For the Kerbals that are astronauts
manning the vehicles players launch,
a casual fan-made name (though
and thrust balance are all things
that need to be taken into account.
It’s just complex enough to engage
the player mentally, and just simple
enough that a single person could
design a great rocket that doesn’t
require a team of mathematicians
and engineers.
The physics of Kerbal Space
Program aren’t anywhere near as
unforgiving and restrictive as NASA
has to deal with in real life, but your
rocket still needs to be logical and
well-constructed.
There’s also a thriving mod scene
that’s constantly creating new
devices and toys for players to tool
around with. Any planet or moon
can be reached with the stock parts,
Conduct your own Apollo mission in KSP by launching a rocket to the moons Mun or Minmus.
not an official dedication by Squad)
was created - Kerbonaut. The Kerbonauts have randomized traits, and
are the only characters in the game
that can be controlled externally by
players. Any Kerbonauts employed
by the Astronaut Complex are listed,
along with new Kerbonaut hirings.
When it comes to game play,
whereas launching a rocket for
NASA requires precise calculations
and restrictive physics, Kerbal has a
slightly easier learning curve. Your
rocket needs to make sense, and the
construction needs to be of quality.
Fuel-efficiency, wind resistance,
however, the modding community
has helped to make some missions
easier. Some parts even have built-in
telemetry tools that can automatically fire your engines for the proper
amount of time and put you on the
perfect heading.
“I’ve actually tried to land on
Duna using the sky-crane method
and I have killed many Kerbals
along the way,” said Douglas Ellison, a visualization producer at
NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
He’s one of the people who helps
make JPL’s scientifically exact digital recreations of NASA missions like
47
www.RocketSTEM .org 47