The Star Rangers video game is now released on Steam Early Access, the name of the game service owned by Valve, the world's preeminent publisher of games. Star Rangers will be featured prominently on the store while it’s gaming community works with the developers to refine it and create opportunities for user-created content, like music, texture, and stories. Khal Shariff, a creative developer and CEO of Project Whitecard Studios in Winnipeg, Canada, spent part of the last year completing an office network with launch partners in Seattle and Florida, as part of Canadian Digital Media Network's Soft Landing program. While his team finished the scientifically-accurate game that's been 28 months in the making with a budget of 2.8 Million dollars that took as many more months to raise, Khal made use of time with Valve in Seattle in the spring to refine Whitecard's corporate culture and marketing plan for Star Rangers, scoped out an office downtown, and audited astronaut training in Florida with partner Project Possum. Future space explorers may finally play the Star Rangers video game on their PC, Mac or Linux computer through the Steam store. Star Rangers is a game that allows game players to experience being an astronaut, realistically, in the near future, about the year 2035. The game includes information on the solar system, which was provided by NASA, assistance from the University of California Irvine, who in turn brought the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the MacArthur Foundation to back the endeavour to introduce real science content into a video game. The Canada Media Fund also backed the effort with about 1 million dollars to produce the game. An original musical score was funded by Factor (dot) ca with Winnipeg musicians and has arrived on iTunes. Project Whitecard, the company who developed the game, has worked with the Canadian Space Agency and NASA on other projects developing innovative education platforms, and has lately expanded into education and medical uses for virtual reality (another technology that Valve in Seattle is pioneering). Star Rangers is being developed with the Steam store community’s involvement. With this approach to development, the creation of Star Rangers will now progress in the direction the community chooses and contributes to, such as emphasizing asteroid-mining, or ramping up buildings for Mars habitats. Star Rangers is a robust, multiplayer open ‘sandbox’ of the local solar system incorporating NASA content, and with an emphasis on surviving and thriving on worlds other than Earth. The game has been in private beta on Steam for several weeks already, for vocal members of its fan base. The beta features over 6 maps on Mars, including the Victoria Crater, the Million Mounds area of the Moon, and a best-guess depiction of what it’s like under the ice on Europa. Those who have participated in the beta will be able to continue enjoying the game as it moves over to Steam Early Access. The game may be purchased on http://star-rangers.com Star Rangers will award official Mozilla Digital badges for building and operating custom rocket-sleds, asteroid mining operations, rovers, robot operations, and the kind of activities that you'd expect any striving astronaut to complete. ### http://store.steampowered.com/app/333340 For more information visit http://www.star-rangers.com Twitter: @TheStarRangers Facebook: /Star-Rangers Website: http://www.star-rangers.com E-mail: press(at)projectwhitecard(dot)com Toll Free: 1-855-269-0718 http://www.projectwhitecard.com

[ 2016-07-06 23:35:09 CET ] [ Original post ]

Explore space as an astronaut recruit and build on other worlds in Star Rangers


Dear Steam Users,
Well it’s time. From a surprise meeting with Bill Nye at NASA, who said “Khal, build the game you want to, not what other people think you should build” to enough funding to allow us 2 years of developing and private testing on Steam , we think we’re ready to show the public our alpha of Star Rangers on Steam. Thank Goodness for Steam.

Star Rangers is kind of a dream game of ours. I've dreamt of it my whole life – to use a game engine to imagine what space travel in the next few years will look like and build a multiplayer sandbox around it which is fun, and possible, and wow – try to do it without using guns.

That’s a pretty tall order, and there have been literally 21 developers working on the game in a peak of 15 or so 14 months ago to turbodrive our core team of 5. We want you to have as much fun as we do , and help us choose the final features of the game for release.

We really want you to tell us what customization features you want the most, from Map editors to in-game stuff:
For example – what do you crave? If you’re like us – you want robots, rockets, maps, and persistence! You want lasers and fusion reactors and 3D printers and you want it all and you want it now.

I think we have an opportunity – an opportunity to show off our best work to SpaceX and NASA and all the rest of the real scientists out there (Like Bill), and really imagine what it takes to extend our civilization off of this rock we call earth.

Some of the things we have in the mid-stages of planning – are real astronaut training for our most active players – we’re saving 10% of all proceeds in a private account so we can sponsor one of you to Astronaut Training at Embry Riddle University with Project Possum! That means one day, one of you will be a real Star Ranger with training and a mission to complete! We’re saving the overflow for an actual space flight.

So, we’re working with a team that includes former astronauts to come up with the best ways for us to add user content to the game, and that’s shaping up to start with custom uniform textures, user-authored notes, and story-mode map-sharing as a first blush.
Thanks for you for attention, and enjoy the low introductory price – you’re the pioneers we were looking for, and we’ll work with you to get everything where we need it.

-Khal and the whole Star Rangers Team

Disclaimer for Early Access:

Star Rangers is being developed with the Steam community’s involvement. With this approach to development, the creation of Star Rangers will now progress in the direction the community chooses and contributes to, such as emphasizing asteroid-mining, or ramping up buildings for Mars colonization.

Star Rangers is an open ‘sandbox’ of the local solar system incorporating NASA content, with an emphasis on surviving and thriving on worlds other than Earth. The game has been in private alpha on Steam for several weeks, for vocal members of its fan base. The first alpha will feature some 6 maps on Mars, including the Victoria Crater, the Million Mounds area of the Moon, and a best-guess depiction of what it’s like under the ice on Europa.

Those who have participated in the alpha will be able to continue enjoying the game as it now moves over to Steam Early Access (thanks Den and WarDJ- you rock).

There are test maps, including a VR map, and you can let us know what you like and what you hate.

Star Rangers will award official Mozilla Digital badges for building and operating custom rocket-sleds, asteroid mining operations, rovers, robots, and more.


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Star Rangers is an open ‘sandbox’ of the local solar system incorporating NASA content, and with an emphasis on surviving and thriving on worlds other than Earth. The game has been in private alpha on Steam for several weeks already, for vocal members of its fan base. This first alpha features some 6 maps on Mars, including the Victoria Crater, the Million Mounds area of the Moon, and a best-guess depiction of what it’s like under the ice on Europa.