Affordable Space Adventures – PAX East Hands On

<p>Created by Copenhagen based indie studio&comma; KnapNok Games&comma; <em>Affordable Space Adventures<&sol;em> charmingly presents itself as a slick&comma; futuristic travel agency offering to bring space exploration to the common folk&comma; for a reasonable price&period; By cutting a few corners here and there&comma; the thrifty agency known as Uexplore&comma; are able to operate on a budget a bit smaller than that of NASA&period; The only problem is&comma; customers get what they pay for&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><a href&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;cdn&period;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2015&sol;03&sol;05021653&sol;Screen-Shot-2015-03-09-at-8&period;44&period;35-PM&period;png"><img class&equals;"aligncenter size-full wp-image-79127" src&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;cdn&period;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2015&sol;03&sol;05021653&sol;Screen-Shot-2015-03-09-at-8&period;44&period;35-PM&period;png" alt&equals;"Screen Shot 2015-03-09 at 8&period;44&period;35 PM" width&equals;"933" height&equals;"524" &sol;><&sol;a><&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>The puzzle-centric campaign&comma; which Creative Director Lau Korsgaard estimated at 10-15 hours&comma; puts you in the role of pilot in a small&comma; less-than-top-of-the-line spacecraft&period; Immediately after starting your journey&comma; things predictably go awry&comma; leaving you stranded and lost on an alien planet you must explore to find your way home&period; Built for cheap exploration&comma; your craft features absolutely no offensive capabilities&period; Instead&comma; in order to navigate the extremely hostile world&comma; you must adapt&period; By scanning your enemies&comma; you learn their sensitivities and must then augment your ship via its &OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;Heads Down Display” &lpar;far cheaper than HUDs&comma; apparently&rpar;&period; With the Wii U’s touchscreen&comma; you can lower your ship’s stabilizers or decrease your thruster power to dampen your electrical or heat output and thus become invisible to certain enemy types&period; However&comma; with lowered stabilizers&comma; or decreased thruster power&comma; your ship begins to handle poorly and you risk crashing&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><a href&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;cdn&period;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2015&sol;03&sol;05021713&sol;Screen-Shot-2015-03-09-at-8&period;42&period;58-PM&period;png"><img class&equals;"aligncenter size-full wp-image-79125" src&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;cdn&period;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2015&sol;03&sol;05021713&sol;Screen-Shot-2015-03-09-at-8&period;42&period;58-PM&period;png" alt&equals;"Screen Shot 2015-03-09 at 8&period;42&period;58 PM" width&equals;"935" height&equals;"524" &sol;><&sol;a><&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>By dividing up the controls of the ship&comma; the game can be played simultaneously by 1&comma; 2 or even 3 players&comma; leaving the engineering responsibilities to the player with the touchscreen controller while the other players use separate controllers to pilot the ship or direct the scanner and spotlight&period; During my demo&comma; I played with one other person who acted as the Scotty to my Captain Kirk&period; After I scanned a few angry tentacle robot monsters&comma; we discovered what alerted them to our presence&period; After my partner adjusted our ship accordingly&comma; we limped past them&comma; unseen&period; Very quickly after&comma; I was screaming for more power and stabilization as we had to quickly negotiate a very narrow path between some deadly lasers&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><a href&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;cdn&period;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2015&sol;03&sol;05021737&sol;ASA-Screenshot-08&period;png"><img class&equals;"aligncenter size-full wp-image-79123" src&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;cdn&period;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2015&sol;03&sol;05021737&sol;ASA-Screenshot-08&period;png" alt&equals;"ASA -- Screenshot-08" width&equals;"1897" height&equals;"1068" &sol;><&sol;a><&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><em>Affordable Space Adventures<&sol;em> takes advantage of the Wii U’s touchscreen controller in a way more Wii U games should&period; Furthermore&comma; while many games simply place players alongside each other and call it co-op&comma; KnapNok Games’ decision to forgo two separate ships and instead divide the single ship’s controls among players ensures a truer&comma; and absolute necessary cooperative experience to succeed&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><iframe src&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;www&period;youtube&period;com&sol;embed&sol;xZxvDzihWqs" width&equals;"560" height&equals;"315" frameborder&equals;"0" allowfullscreen&equals;"allowfullscreen"><&sol;iframe><&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>If you’ve always wanted to go on a space adventure&comma; but it never was in your budget&comma; check out <em>Affordable Space Adventures<&sol;em> when it launches in the Nintendo eShop on April 9th&period; There are currently no plans to port the game to any other platform&comma; but depending on how it’s received&comma; an eventual port is said to not be out of the question&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;