Space Engineers #3 - Lift Off!

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All right, time to get crackin'. Remember that 'New World' button? Let's mash it!

Crap. More options. No worries, this will just take a sec...

Quickstart puts you into the 'Easy Start 1' scenario (more on this in a moment), but in 'Creative' mode (as opposed to 'Survival' mode). What's the difference? Well, similar to Minecraft's Creative mode, in this game you will get infinite supplies, instant build times and no death and that is why you will never pick it.

Select 'Custom World' and you can do whatever you want with the World settings (including all of those from Quickstart if you really want to).

Now, in the interest of getting into the bloody game, I will postpone the explanation of the Scenarios and World Options until next time. Suffice it to say for now, a great place to start is with the 'Easy Start 1' scenario with the default settings shown...

and Advanced settings changed thusly...

finally, we rename the world and give it a description...

Mash the 'OK' button, and whoila! You are somewhere out in the asteroid field on your own little outpost consisting of a mining platform, 3 small ships, and one large ship!



Press 'v' to move the view into 3rd person perspective...

hold the 'Alt' key down to move your camera around for a selfie...

then use the mouse wheel to zoom out, and...

get an overview of the whole operation. Sweet!

So, before we go, let's take a little spin around the platform and check out some basic controls...

 

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Space Engineers #2 - Getting Set Up

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When you fire up Space Engineers, you will be presented with the Main Menu. A video will be playing in the background demonstrating the real physics engine in all its glory where the devs are having fun crashing objects together.



 
Over on the right, you will see a 'Recommend' button where you can announce your new interest to the world via the usual social media outlets such as Facebook and Twitter. Beneath that, a text window will announce the latest news whether a new patch or company update. A link is provided that you can follow for details.

On the left, you have the following buttons.

In the first group:

• New World - Create a new game world
• Load World - Load a saved game world
• Join World - Join a multiplayer game hosted by another player
• Workshop - Load a game world that has been uploaded to the Steam Workshop by another player/designer

and in the second group:

• Options - Set Game, Video, Audio and Key-bind options
• Help - Link for Tutorial Videos, Displays Key binds
• Credits - Um... rolls game credits
• Exit to Windows - With a Save Game prompt!

Prior to actually starting a game, you might want to visit the Options area to set up your video and audio settings.

Clicking the 'Options' button brings to the Options screen where you can select subcomponents to set options for

• Game
• Video
• Audio
• Controls


The 'Game' options can be left at the defaults for most purposes.

'Video' options should be adjusted to your system's capabilities.

The 'Audio' options, well, meh. I have the music volume turned down so that when I record a video for this blog, you will be able to hear my voice over the music...

... whether you want to or not.

And, last, but not least, the Control options allows you to do remap/restore your key binds for

• Navigation
• Tools / Weapons
• System (3 screens)
• Spectator

Here's the Navigation Controls key bind map. As you can see, you can map each function to up to 2 keys and a mouse button.

 Bored yet? Yeah, I'll bet. Ok, next time we'll get into creating a new world with a brief description of those options. I promise. No, really, we'll actually get a game going.

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Space Engineers #1 - Introduction

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Woohoo, Space Engineers!

Space Engineers

Now, I know, this kind of game isn't going to appeal to everyone. In fact, I'm not really sure how large the audience is (although over 1 million copies have been sold), but it certainly appeals to me and my interest in astronomy and space. So, if you are interested, check out the website at the link above, but in the meantime, here are some highlights...

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.

In 2002, Marek Rosa got an idea of making a physics-sandbox game where players construct static and dynamic structures in a grid-like environment, with realistic physics and realistic volumetricity.

This idea was inspired by his childhood days, spent with the popular construction toys of LEGO and LEGO TECHNIC.

This looked pretty cool to me, and as I mentioned in the last post, Steam was having a sale with this game being 50% off ($10). *sigh* I couldn't resist. OMG, what did I get myself into. Of course, I always say that.

So, let's take it from the top.

Currently, the game is available as an 'Early Access Game' (it is still in development) and may be purchased for $19.99 either directly from the developer or from Steam, but note that you will be required to have a Steam account in order to play the game. If you are feeling generous, a 4-pack is available for purchase at $59.99 or 4 for the price of 3. Gift the other copies to friends (this is a multiplayer game after all)! The only platform currently supported is Windows, but Xbox One support at a future date has been announced. This is a one-time purchase with neither subscription nor micro-transactions.

So, let's get started, by taking a look at the trailer...

Now, I'm a little bit anal (which comes as no surprise to those of you that know me), so I tend to visit YouTube and find some tutorial  videos on games I am considering for purchase, or those that I have newly purchased. Especially for those games that don't come with a manual as is the case here. So let me point you to a video or two...

1. Space Engineers Tutorial - Great place to start.
2. GasBandit Tutorial Series - These are great. Nothing assumed and as always, I prefer clean language.
3. Also, the company releases videos for each patch and they can be found here.

There are many other great videos out there as well and I suspect that I will probably add a couple to the mix myself! So take some time reviewing a couple of these and next time we'll launch the game and talk about some of the configuration possibilities and what they mean when starting out developing your very own outpost in space!!

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A New Year, A New Post

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Well, of course I was correct when I said in my first post that I would start this blog, post for a couple of months and then quit. That's from experience. Whatever. The demands of real life rears its ugly head.

But guess what? It's the start of a New Year! 2015! (Yeah, I know, I kinda missed 2014 in its entirety.) And another new game has struck my fancy. Hey! I heard that groan.

Don't get me wrong, I will get back to Tomb Raider, it's a great game and I really would like to add it to my minuscule list of completed games, but right now I'm playing Dragon Age: Origins simply becuase my daughter got interested in Dragon Age: Inquisition and I thought that since I had the original game that I had started to play (never getting out of the starting area), I would try and get through it and I already owned it, so it was "free"... you get the idea.

But, that is not what this blog will be about. At least for a while.

Steam. In their own words, Steam offers a "Digital game store for Windows, Mac, and Linux platforms with forums, update client and store code redemption". That's a bit simplistic and certainly understated. Boy, do they offer a bunch of games. New, old, indie, you name it. By no means all, but a lot. And they have some great sales, so let me warn you up front... oh... you already clicked on the link? Well, sorry about that.

The Indie games available are one of the best things about Steam. Small development shops get the opportunity to put their games out in front of large numbers of players. And there are some real diamonds in the rough out there. A somewhat new paradigm is to open a game currently in development, but playable, to the general gaming public for testing, feedback and of course, income. You will usually pay between $5 and $20 for access to a game that is in open 'Alpha'. The game is purchased 'as is' with no guarantees about feature set, etc. This helps the independent developer get some income flowing in while still developing the game. The greater the interest, the greater the income, the more incentive the developer has to not only finish the game but add more features as requested by the audience.

So, one of these games rather caught my eye after having played a little 'Minecraft' and 'Craft the World'. Can you guess? Well, you'll have to wait until next time to find out. In the meantime, Happy New Year!

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#8 - Tomb Raider 2013, Episode 5 "Woman versus Wild"

No, this is not a video of "Lara Gone Wild", like on spring break, but rather, Lara is finally about to branch out (see what I did there?) and start working on her own, starting with finding some food, which means killing game, which means finding something to kill with...

Episode 5 "Woman vs Wild"

#7 - Tomb Raider 2013, Episode 4 "Signs of Survivors"

So, Lara has spent an exciting time navigating the underground passages of the "Scavenger's Den", attempting to avoid crushing boulders (whoops), jumping across gaps, and scrambling up an ascending path with boulders rolling down it. Having narrowly escaped death (well, a second death anyway), and concluding the introduction to the game (marked by the big "TOMB RAIDER" words that suddenly appear in the sky) Lara gets a moment to catch her breath. Wow, that last segment was exciting wasn't it? It certainly got my blood pumping. Hmmm, yes, well just wait. Plenty more where that came from, in...

Episode 4 "Signs of Survivors"

 

#6 - Tomb Raider 2013, Episode 3 "Force of Will"

In episode 2 (a rather short episode), Lara has escaped from her cocoon, and made her way along a passage, obtaining and lighting a torch along the way. She is about to face her first real puzzle in order to continue on her way and hopefully, out of the underground maze of passages. She is able to figure it out without too much backtracking.

In future episodes, I will try to keep death related re-loads to a minimum as I will some of the more boring or repetitive parts of a quest.

Tomb Raider Playthrough - E03 "Force of Will"