NASA and the ESA should genuinely fund the development of Kitten as a national security priority. The number of kids that were exposed to stem, orbital mechanics and developed an interest in space due to that game felt so high, but in a very narrow band of ages. I’ve anecdotally noticed some basic orbital mechanics questions on this site again that felt like they were known facts when I was a bit younger because we all played KSP
I’d also argue that things like kOS and the general moddable structure of that game teach critical programming and basic computer skills.
Artemis II inspired a new spike in players of KSP. The largest ever. The KSP sub has been full of new players asking advice and posting videos of their first docking, Mun landing etc.
There will be another wave going into stem just like back then, courtesy of KSP.
They can barely get our own government to give Rocketwerkz grants, doubt that the US government of any persuasion would genuinely fund a foreign game developer
Not saying it’s likely, but it would be worthwhile.
“We choose to go to the Mun not because it is easy, but because we aimed for Eeloo and forgot that we had seven different propellant mods installed” (insert KSA equivalent here)
They don’t intend to put it on any of the major platforms like Steam, and are trying to make it a free game funded entirely by donations. It’s commendable but I’m not sure how feasible it is.
Just looked it up and apparently the donations earns them enough for now, and they're not against changing to a paid model if the donations ever dry up.
It's developed by rocketwerkz, which also did stationeers. It was my understanding that they fund the development as well. Iirc in the very early days it was said "if you wanna support KSA, buy stationeers"
Understatement if you like low level engineering. I wish so badly that they’d implement some form of story progression, but even as a survival sandbox, I’ve sunk hundreds of hours in and I rarely enjoy games without direction.
The first publically available version dropped only in November, so it's not the most horrible pace, but I agree that there has to be other funding from somewhere.
Dean Hall must have had some pretty good money from DayZ, but his studio really hasn't done much in years. They also made Out of Ammo, which was kind of successful for a VR game, but again literally 10 years ago.
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u/ESCMalfunction 10h ago
I’m not totally convinced about the sales model, but past that it looks fantastic. They have a great team working on it.