Demo For NASA MMO Coming In January

Posted by Soulskill on Wednesday December 23, 2009 @06:32AM from the hope-you're-good-at-regolith-farming dept.

News of the upcoming NASA MMO, Astronaut: Moon, Mars, and Beyond, has been scarce since its announcement in 2008, but NASA recently revealed that a "mini demo game" is coming in January that will show off some of what they've completed so far. "Moon Base Alpha utilizes actual NASA Constellation program design details developed by NASA for mankind’s return to the Moon in 2020. Timelines in the much anticipated Astronaut: Moon, Mars and Beyond MMO will be set even farther in the exciting future (2035+), but the ability to explore our own near-future moon missions is also planned for in the forthcoming game facilitated by the NASA Learning Technologies and Innovative Partnerships Programs." They're provided a slideshow and a brief video, and one of the developers spoke about the game with Edge last month.

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Will it be like Spore? by s_p_oneil · 2009-12-23 07:01 · Score: 4, Insightful

After doing SimEarth, Maxis kicked around the idea of a SimMars. NASA was really excited about helping them (and helping build up PR on the space program), but Maxis killed the idea because they couldn't find a way to make a game about Mars fun without making it 100% fantasy. It's like trying to make a math game fun.