We're looking for new writers to join us!

A 40-minute reveal of Spaceplan's minimalist astrophysics cookie clicker

by: Randy -
More On: Spaceplan

Oh great. An abstract game about mind-boggling patience, slow-burn discovery, and an astronomical buildup of energy and growth.

I'm in.

Actually, if you had to nail down a thesis for Spaceplan, then, according to the designers, it's "an experimental piece of interaction based partly on a total misunderstanding of Stephen Hawking's A Brief History of Time." Well now. There's a book I haven't read (and left unfinished) in a long time. You've got my attention, Spaceplan.

Spaceplan is purportedly an evolution of the "clicker" genre of games, although that's a genre I've never had anything to do with until this very moment. From the game's spaceplan.click website:

Use manual clicks and the passage of time to create and launch potato-based devices and probes from your nondescript satellite orbiting a mysterious planet. Unlock the mysteries of the galaxy or just kill some time in what the astrophysics community is calling the "best narrative sci-fi clicker game of all time."

So, the screen is a minimalist dreamscape. The light from an unseen source, likely a sun— though this planetary body doesn't appear to revolve around that sun—dims and brightens as you pass through the red planet's shadow.

You, the small-shadow-casting satellite of this giant red spot, are embroiled in a seemingly slow-motion building sim that's actually moving at 67,000 mph through this grayscale solar system. Firing off various "potatoes," as the trailer puts it, which is a joke, as the trailer also puts it.

The music is early '00s ambient coffeehouse, as far as I can tell, adding to the intentionally shapeless narrative. And the soundscape is punctuated by distinct pings when you launch pixels from your pixelated spacecraft.

So what's the actual space plan? I couldn't tell you. Do these blocks represent ideas? Populations? Urbanization? What happens when the planet is full, or simply when you feel like you're done? What patterns and shapes emerge on the planetary surface or in your psyche from having built this planet, this cloud of satellites, these monoliths reaching up and out of the atmosphere?

Is Spaceplan the world's slowest Katamari Damacy? Is it the world's fastest model of overpopulation and technological advancement and artchitectural booming?

Or is there nothing here? Is it pointless? Is it just not that deep, bro? That's okay. The dev acknowledges they're not trying to be the next Call of Duty. They're not trying to detract from your favorite screaming YouTube personalities, if that's how you unwind at the end of the day. But, like that other nearly inscrutable game about object and material accumulation, Mountain, I think Spaceplan could be saying something. Just don't expect the game to say it for you. The dev is a tad cynical, I'd say, but that's okay. I'm not judging. And then again, maybe it's just about launching satellites and that's it. Thesis stated and explained. 

The standard marketing materials for the trailer all happen in the first couple minutes. But if Spaceplan is for you, and you already know if it is just by looking at the thumbnail on the trailer, then you, like me, might be letting it play on your second monitor at work for the next 40 minutes. A 40-minute trailer! Amazing. I am amazed. Also, the game won't be free. Not at all. The screenshots reveal that there's more to it than what the trailer reveals, but I think it's fair to say that if you can't watch 40 minutes of what you see in this trailer, then you'd be wasting your money anyway. Me? I'm all like, Name your price! But nobody on staff here likes my opinion when it comes to this stuff anyway.

Spaceplan is coming May 4 (Star Wars Day) to Steam, iOS, and Android.