

ESA SHIELD
Hochschule Darmstadt Games Lab · 2025 · Simulation, Strategy, Tower Defense, Space Sim, Roguelite
PC
This game is free to play. Get it on Steam →
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About ESA SHIELD
ESA SHIELD - Earth's Safety Starts with You!
Become head of the European Space Agency's Space Safety Department and protect Earth from real cosmic hazards like Asteroids, Space Debris, and Space Weather. This science-based Planetary Protection Simulator combines tower defense, roguelite, and strategy elements to create a unique gameplay experience grounded in reality.Before you can defend Earth, you need to see the threats coming. Build powerful ground-based monitoring systems to scan the skies for incoming danger—from massive solar storms to fast-moving asteroids.But ground systems alone won’t be enough.Built and sent your satellites into orbit to create a global network of satellites. The more eyes you have in space, the better your chances of survival.Early detection is your best defense.With the right data, you can assess each threat, determine its danger level, and launch the right countermeasures—before it’s too late.Every successful mission makes you stronger.Earn resources, unlock new technologies, and upgrade your systems to stay one step ahead of the next big space threat.ESA SHIELD is more than a game: It’s a space mission!It is developed as an outreach initiative for the European Space Agency to confront one of the most overlooked challenges in spacecraft: Space Safety. Play the game and support ESA in its mission to keep space safe and Earth protected.☄️ Encounter Real Space Threats Face the same dangers ESA deals with today. Coronal mass ejections, asteroid impacts, and space debris. Each threat behaves differently, affecting systems in unique ways, and demands its own monitoring and defense approach. Every decision could be the difference between survival and orbital disaster. 🔬 Research Real TechnologiesUnlock and implement real-world tech from past missions, current prototypes, and near-future plans. Build your strategy using actual science and engineering: from telescopes to deflection rockets.🛰️ Build and Customize SatellitesDesign your own space systems: choose components, mission goals, and orbital paths. Balance cost, stability, and lifetime to create your optimal satellite system.📡 Monitor the SkiesDeploy and upgrade detection systems like telescopes and radar arrays. Expand your coverage, improve precision, and catch incoming threats before they hit.🚀 Defend Earth and InfrastructureBuild and operate space-based defense systems to prevent catastrophic impacts. Launch interceptors, trigger system shutdowns, or send clean-up bots into decaying orbits.🎯 Make Strategic Decisions Under PressureEvery threat comes with uncertainty. React with limited data, weigh the risks, and choose between bold moves or conservative actions. Your judgment matters.Under a programme of, and funded by, the European Space Agency.What Steam players say
Recent verbatim reviews from Steam — separate from playze.io community reviews below.
What the, did you make this so short so you could present a playthrough within 15 minutes to your profs with their terrible attention span? I mean I get respecting your players time but you could have paced this a little slower. with a bit more rudimentary mission design, and no hard win / fail condition within the first few minutes. I love this and with a few tweaks and rebalancing this could be suuuuuuuch a great idle game / education game. Play around with automosation more, and make stuff take longer to unlock. Came into this hoping I could also interactively learn something about the copernicus program. If you make this a good idler people would reasonably buy this between 3-5€ surely you wont have to pay esa roalyties either I mean """we""" already financed them from public money so its more or less public domain anyways.2 found this helpful
Such a interesting and creative game! It will be great!2 found this helpful
Big Rock
Fun game, but there is much more that could be added and I would suggest more detail into research, and popular support from the public. Depending on what the Dev's are aiming for, they could go many different ways with this game. I loved playing, and cant wait to see more depth and detail in this proof of concept.
Awful UI. The game briefly shows you how to defend against asteroids, but when I tried to build a rocket, the menu to actually launch it into orbit didn’t work at all. I had more than enough science to launch, clicked the asteroid, clicked around the static picture of the planet, tried dragging and dropping something—nothing. Meanwhile, the countdown kept ticking. Just lame.
Inteface woks like ♥♥♥♥. Tons of Buttons you dont see or can't click so actually not playable because you can't click all the buttons you need. As much as I like Esa i don't know why they waste probably our tax money for crap like this. Bad Idea.
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