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“Kitten Space Agency”, a Spiritual Successor to “Kerbal Space Program” (2025)
- rowanseymour 6mo agoSo excited to play this but also sad that they didn't get the IP to use Kerbals. Not loving the cutesy baby kittens.. should have gone with a more serious animal like capybaras.
- libraryatnight 6mo agoI don't know why but I found myself thinking "Capybaras would make much more sense." And I meant it.
- RankingMember 6mo agoSomething about their resolute "ok I'll deal with this" facial expressions while being absolute units body-wise seem right for comical astronauts.
- Zee2 6mo agoGiant tardigrades would have been fun. Serious, authentic space travelers... not so much on the cuteness factor, though.
- amarant 6mo agoThe next spiritual successor should allow us to customise the species, and let us deal with whatever consequences that might bring! Like, you might have a aquatic space-faring species, which requires you to bring lots of water into space. More rockets (and struts!) will be needed, but at least you get really good radiation protection out of it! Tardigrades ought to be a cheat code, you can just glue your crew to the outside of the booster and they'll probably be alright so long as you don't glue them to the fiery end!
- tintor 6mo agoI'd like to play Minion Space Program.
- throwaway27448 6mo agoAren't the kerbals basically minions with dignity?
- danilocesar 6mo agoNot mine. My kerbin's ocean is full of them now.
- dmoy 6mo agoNot sure if that's more or less bad than the dozens of kerbals polluting my LKO for, uh... reasons. Since I play with no mods I guess they're all still technically alive since they don't require food or water and have an apparently infinite supply of oxygen.
- pinewurst 6mo agoIsn’t that NASA?
- alnwlsn 6mo agoI would play this if it allowed one to steal the moon.
- goda90 6mo agoPerhaps it will be moddable to have whatever animal a modder might choose to put in there.
- zamadatix 6mo agoI think the angle is at least partially that "Kitten"/"Kerbal" both start with a 'K' and are 2 syllables making the game names sound very similar (in both full form and abbreviation). Of course, I'm sure there will be Kerbal mods if the game proves anywhere near as popular!
- nerdsniper 6mo ago"Kapybara"
- pooploop64 6mo agoThe main reason for them being kittens is to incentivize valuing the astronauts lives without forcing a gameplay related penalty for killing or losing them. The disposability of astronauts is something the devs of this game think was a mistake in KSP. But at the same it's not a game about forcing the player to behave a certain way, so making them kittens is the middle ground.
- TeMPOraL 6mo agoWhat disposability? Kerbals were never disposable! If you crash your little green astronauts on some moon or planet, you're supposed to send a rescue mission after them. And should that rescue fail too, stranding more Kerbals, you just keep launching more rescue missions, until you successfully establish a colony :).
- jmorenoamor 6mo agoRescue missions were one of the funniest and challenging parts of KSP, and a cannonical meme of the community.
- stetrain 6mo ago'Kapybara Space Program' has actually already been done as an April Fool's post by the previous studio that worked on Kerbal Space Program 2: https://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/topic/216143-kapybara-space-program-a-world-of-cheese-melons-and-galactic-exploration/ https://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/topic/216143-kapybara-s...
- flohofwoe 6mo agoI bet there will be mods in no time to bring the Kerbals back :)
- Rebelgecko 6mo agoThere was a mod within 24 hours of the tech demo being released :)
- altmanaltman 6mo agoYeah I don't think i can stomach cute kittens in my rockets that go boom on launch at least 80% of times. At least Kerbals were strange enough i didnt care
- laughing_man 6mo agoKSP 2 killed the franchise so decisively the KSA devs might be able to license Kerbals for not too much.
- jmorenoamor 6mo agoDay -1 mod will bring space frogs back.
- zamadatix 6mo agoI just started doing a final playthrough of KSP in anticipation by the time KSA is in a more complete state I'll have the itch for such a game again. It's looking to be in a much better direction than KSP 2 (very glad I managed to avoid that) both technically & in release approach.
- pohl 6mo agoUsing kittens is a master stroke. If done right, the internet will reward them.
- Gagarin1917 6mo agoI was surprised how much backlash there is over using kittens. It turned out that people are worried they’ll get too attached to the kittens to be able to enjoy them becoming engulfed in massive explosions.
- w4der 6mo agoThere is historical precedent tho: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F%C3%A9licette https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F%C3%A9licette
- cfiggers 6mo agoNow that's funny. "They're too easy to get sentimentally attached to, and then it makes me sad if I blow them up!" Honestly this probably enhances the sandbox nature of the game by making the stakes more palpable.
- ajxs 6mo agoThinking about what would be going through Bill Kerman's little head as he approaches the rocket having just seen poor Jebediah Kerman vaporised on the launch pad was pretty funny. I don't think this same gallows humour extends to kittens.
- magicalhippo 6mo agoKittens have 9 lives, just take them out of rotation before they run out. Could have a counter on their space suit.
- mc32 6mo agoA nice segue for kids from the Catstronauts series…
- throwaway27448 6mo agoLet me know when I can run it on my Mac. I realize I'm 1% of the world but I can't even be bothered to unfuck the gaming machines I own that are gathering dust. Just let me use my main workstation and I'll play the shit out of it
- zamadatix 6mo agoI wonder what they'll do in that regard, has anyone seen an official comment on the intent? I know they already have a Linux build but they didn't have to create a new graphics API target (they use Vulkan) to do that.
- throwaway27448 6mo agoYou can target Macs with Vulcan. It's not ideal but it should be fine.
- MarsIronPI 6mo agoI wish it were open-source, especially since it's being distributed "pay-what-you-want" anyway. If they released the source, they could get free labor to port to Mac or even console homebrew.
- Svoka 6mo agoThey answered this on their wiki: > Will KSA be open source? The game is not expected to be made open source due to certain dependencies that are not also open source. Public code contributions may be opened up in the future pending concerns around effectively managing the potential volume of code contributions.
- ryandrake 6mo ago> The game is not expected to be made open source due to certain dependencies that are not also open source. That's always kind of struck me as a silly excuse. So just release it without those non-open source dependencies. If there is a community need, they will be re-implemented. There's no law that says an open source release needs to be buildable from day one.
- JLO64 6mo agoI’m primarily a coding instructor but I also teach lessons based around Kerbal Space Program. From that angle I’m pretty happy where these devs are going with the sandbox and level of freedom they plan on giving users. One reason my students seem to really like KSP are all the different things you can do/build (especially space planes). While it does have a high difficulty curve when it comes to the controls, once they master them they all seem to appreciate the level of control they have. From my perspective, I feel that instead of trying to make certain systems more accessible/simple they should go in the opposite direction and offer more control/options (preferably with a decent tutorial though). However, something I really hope the developers plan on making a macOS port. I use a MacBook myself, but I’ve noticed the vast majority of my students also have Macs. I have no hard data to back this up, but I suspect a larger than average segment of users interested in this game are on Mac.
- peesem 6mo agosomewhere they have an FAQ where one of the questions is about Mac support, i remember the response being something like "most of the developers use Macs so it might happen" edit: here - https://kittenspaceagency.wiki.gg/wiki/Frequently_asked_questions#Will_the_game_support_Linux_and_macOS https://kittenspaceagency.wiki.gg/wiki/Frequently_asked_ques...?
- bigyabai 6mo ago> Officially supported native builds for both [macOS and Linux] would require significant financial contributions to be considered economical. Running it through Wine is probably the safest bet. Should be no problem for platforms with D3D11 emulation figured out (eg. basically everwhere).
- laughing_man 6mo agoI'm running KSP on Proton, and it works just fine. If I were developing the game native builds on Linux would be pretty far down the priority list.
- janzer 6mo ago
- etiam 6mo agoWasn't a big part of the attraction of KSP to see your creations fall apart, without too much guilt about it? Neotenous fluffy mammals for collateral damage seems like an unfortunate handicap to take on. Maybe they should make it worms or something?
- esperent 6mo agoWorms space program, and add a mode where after you land you discover an opposing team is already there and you have to battle them using rocket launchers and bombs across a rocky landscape.
- incognito124 6mo agoAn actual spiritual successor to KSP is KSP2 Redux, a community project to resurrect KSP2. They made tons of progress already: https://ksp2redux.org/ https://ksp2redux.org/
- mihemihe 6mo agoKSP2 modding is a dead end. Also, it forces people to buy an abandonware KSP2 to play the mod. I spent myself those 50Euro on KSP2 when it was still active on development, but now I hope no one else makes the same mistake.
- laughing_man 6mo agoThe fact that they're still selling KSP 2 as an early access game without clearly stating there won't be any further development is, well, fraud.
- OkayPhysicist 6mo agoKitten Space Agency is being made by one of the studios that attempted to land the contract to make KSP2. Basically, KSP1 had fundamental engine limitations that were blocking adding stuff that the developers really wanted (interstellar travel, better colonies, etc). So instead of just developing more DLC, they decided to make KSP2. Since the company that made KSP1 wasn't a game developer (they were a marketing company that gave their devs some free time), they shopped around for a studio to take it over. Of the studios that offered to take on the project, they ended up choosing Take2, because they had a flashy, art-focused pitch. Take 2 muddled around in development hell, then decided to abandon the engine rewrite, and focus almost exclusively on releasing a graphics overhaul of KSP1, all while still promising the features that required the engine rewrite in the first place. Queue absolutely disastrous early access launch. Rocketwerks, the KSA studio, were another one of the studios that pitched for KSP2, on the technical basis of their proposed replacement engine which would actually solve the problems that was KSP2 raison d'être. After Take2's KSP2 failed miserably, fired all it's staff, and then pretended that KSP2 wasn't dead for months, Rocketwerks announced that they were going to build their own game, KSA, on the engine that they had developed for KSP2. In short, KSA is more of a KSP2 than what Take2 gave us.
- Romanulus 6mo ago[dead]
- cindyllm 6mo ago[dead]
- Tyr42 6mo agoWhat's the best way to play on Linux? I'm sure proton would work but it's not on steam...
- ranger207 6mo agoI've had success with other games (haven't tried KSA yet) adding them as a non-Steam game and using Proton like that. But yeah not being on Steam and me having to eg check for updates on my own, remember another login to download on a new computer, etc means that I'm going to stick with KSP 1 for a while at least
- fennecfoxy 6mo agospace.com huh... 2s of visiting the site, before I've even had a chance to read the article: - consent for trying to enable notifications - modal for trying to get me to subscribe to emails Then skim, try to leave - Hijacks back button for a "before you leave" thing Absolute trash.