Launch Director

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I got the pleasure to experience Launch Director prior to its release on steam, as well as this release version. The title is a really enjoyable take what it may be like to work for a Japanese aerospace company. Its a short title as a whole, roughly 20-30mins runtime total provided you hit your altitude targets on the first try. Upon completion of the main game, the player is able to continue exploring the facility and see some of the rockets up close in a museum. I think its well worth playing, and the final launch mission (without spoiling), really gets you a cool perspective of everything. Just note, if your game seems like it may have hung on its first load, wait a minute, close and reopen the title. First load was likely compiling shaders. I would highly recommend giving this one a try if you're into aerospace! At the time of writing, Launch Director is free and is a perfect length to be considered a 'vertical slice' for the experience the developer envisioned.

Roughly made free game, lack usable UI and analysis tool for design fuel configuration.

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"Launch Director" is a godawfully bad... thing... made with Unreal Engine. The idea, or intention, I guess, because whatever this intended to do it didn't, is to provide a simulation game where the player can administer a terrestrial space program. The implementation here is a direct affront to gamers and game development, a slow, clunky mess as you plod around the entryway to a space center then try to get in and find out just how much worse it is the more you go... this truly is an incompetent train wreck pretending to be a game. This comes across as something unambitious and "simple" in terms of implementation and technical quality and depth, more like a game dev tutorial or an experiment. It’s a classic case of a developer prioritizing the low effort needed to get a game listed on Steam over the actual delivery of a technically sound or compelling product. Whatever is needed to hammer out something "good" enough for Steam Direct self-publishing. The graphics aren't great, a laughably primitive low poly spaceport scene that looks to be lifted from a basic Japanese asset pack of some kind... I'm 100% sure I already saw these exact same assets in a bit of Russian junkware. …