Pumping Irony

Update: Removed screenshots and replaced with embedded Picasa slideshow.

NASA released their free game Moonbase Alpha last week, distributed through Steam, and I’ve played a few sessions so far. It is supposed to serve as a proof-of-concept for the in-development MMO funded by NASA, though the current game only supports 1-6 players. The game was developed by a partnership of NASA, Army Game Studio, and Virtual Heroes, a division of Applied Research Associates and uses the Unreal Engine 3 (the Army Game Studio uses UE3 for their America’s Army game) to inspire interest in STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) education and careers. The official site bills Moonbase Alpha as a “first-person explorer” though it’s mostly third-person. Scrolling the mouse will switch to a first-person camera but unfortunately it does not switch the FOV (field of vision) to a proper first-person perspective while in first-person camera mode. Most MMO’s are also guilty of this, so perhaps it’s safe to assume most MMO Gamers wouldn’t know the difference anyway?

The premise for the game is that in 2025 NASA has a small, nearly self-sufficient base on the moon, the eponymous Moonbase Alpha, and the players are researchers at a small outpost near the moon’s south pole. As you load the game, you’re shown a brief movie where you witness a small meteorite impact the moon’s surface near your outpost which damages the solar power arrays and oxygen supply to the living quarters. The game session – which is only 20 minutes in the standard competitive mode – then begins as players attempt to make repairs in time.

There is currently no real hand-holding at all and my first session I walked over to the camp having no idea that I needed to get a welding torch out of the equipment shed first, so I had to walk back over to the shed then walk back over to the camp and start fixing things. It’s also a bit sim-ish in the sense that once I retrieved the welding torch from the equipment shed, if I want to pick up another tool or drive the lunar rover I first have to put down the welding torch. Players can load equipment onto the bed of the lunar rover then board the vehicle to drive to a repair location to save time, since walking on the moon can be painfully slow. The more players who join the game, the more repairs need to be made so strategy becomes involved deciding who fixes what, and who gets to use the rover as it’s only a 2-person vehicle, as well as deciding to repair components that are heavily damaged or to replace them. Again the rover can come into play hauling replacement parts while someone else dismantles the broken part.

There are two solar power arrays to repair, each of which needs to have the solar panel lowered first. One is fairly heavily damaged. A toolbox is already placed between the two arrays and contains a welding torch and a wrench which will be needed to secure at least one power hose to a coupler after it’s repaired or replaced.

Next is the oxygen generators. Unfortunately these are leaking dangerous contaminants and players cannot get too close to the generator camp. Luckily NASA stocked some deployable RCU’s (robot constructor unit) in the equipment shed. One RCU has an arm which can pickup parts of the ground and re-insert them into the generators while the other RCU has a built-in welding torch for those up-close repairs that the astronaut players are unable to safely perform themselves. Once deployed, the player remote-controls the RCU to make the needed repairs while monitoring the status of the robot’s battery and also maintaining proper distance to the remote control to avoid losing the signal.

Welding has a simplistic yet challenging mini-game associated, where every so often a window with a circuit board appears and you “solder” specific connections to help speed up the welding repairs. It’s as simple as holding the mouse and drawing a line, staying within the boundaries given, but each successful weld will “level up” the next attempt which will give even more circuits to weld and a shorter amount of time to make the welds. Each successful attempt shaves several seconds off the total repair time, which can be critical with the 20 minute session time. There is also an option to create the game in “free play” rather than “competitive” which removes said time limit so players can explore and repair at their leisure.

This entry was posted on Monday, July 12th, 2010 at 6:19 pm and is filed under MMO. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.