Two months after releasing the Early Beta project, it's now time to announce a host of new features for Buzz Aldrin’s Space Program Manager. The game has been played for over 100,000 hours, by thousands of players around the world and over 3000 suggestions posted via the forums.
“We have seen a tremendous amount of feedback from the players”, said Ignacio Liverotti, Lead Designer & Programmer at Polar Motion. “All these contributions have been analyzed and taken into consideration to form a brand new list of features we are adding to the pipeline. This will of course delay the release of the final product, but we are really committed to delivering the players the game they want and know the players will understand and appreciate what we are doing”.
After some careful planning during the past few weeks, developer and publisher have decided to rewrite the original roadmap.
First and foremost a brand new "Race to the Moon" campaign will be added: players will be able to play as either the Soviets or the USA in a race to be the first to set foot on the Moon (and return safely back to Earth!). This 2 new campaigns will co-exist with the originally announced campaign, which means that the campaign mode will now feature three options: race to the Moon as Soviets, race to the Moon as Americans and Global Space Agency. What we’re saying is that nothing is being taken away – just a load of new stuff is being added for free!
Other important features which are being added:
* Support for widescreen resolutions for desktop platforms
* Ability to mix-and-match rockets and payloads: instead of forcing players to run a mission using a predefined set of rockets and payloads, for more customization and replay value.
* Support for multiplayer: Space Program Manager will use Slitherine's PBEM system, so players will be able to challenge and play the race to the Moon campaign against other players across the different platforms
Artists are already working on the next Road to the Moon assets and a new release date will be announced soon. In the meantime, updates will still be provided in a regular basis in order to introduce new gameplay mechanics, contents and address the bugs and suggestions reported by the early adopters. For more information n Buzz Aldrin’s Space Program Manager, check out the official product page.
The reason I asked was because despite the space race being over post-1969 there was still a bit of a rivalry to try and one up or copy each other where you had the Soviet Salut stations, then the U.S. Skylab station, the U.S. Space Shuttle and the Soviet Buran, the Soviet Mir and the (proposed) U.S. Space Station Freedom.