Photo courtesy of Keen Software House

Bryce Fraser, writer
Shiftsync Media

Armed with a welding tool, drill, and sometimes a sub machinegun the game Space Engineers offers a sandbox experience literally letting players create and explore their own universe.

Space Engineers is a game developed and published by Keen Software House that was released October 23, 2013 as an Alpha.  The game involves crafting and hording minerals collected to build structures and ships. The game has recently added Planets due to player’s requests.

The game allows players to build with their own design space ships. You can build a giant starship with rooms, welding ships, drill ships, or even fighter ships. You can also build ships for digging and collecting minerals. There are welding ships that help make repairs on other structures and ships. You are able to fly from the planet directly to space and even from space onto the planet.

The game offers players a chance to build whatever their imagination can put together. While testing the game I built my own small and it ship wasn’t very pretty but that was my fault. I and a friend attacked some computer controlled enemies on earth. We even jumped onto one of the drones and dismantled it by drilling off panels to find the remote controlled part and rebuilt it so we could fly it.

There are many different servers available for players to jump into. Some having their own rules to the world available for players to read when they first arrive. So far, the most fun from the game, however, is just building ships of your own and fighting with close friends in a private session.

I would like to see how the public servers will expand and grow as the game comes closer to an official release. The game is very solid for one that is in Alpha state, definitely fun for building and playing with friends. It will be an amazing game to see when it is finally finished.