Kerbal Space Program Takes Off in a New Direction: Edutainment!
The sequel to the fantastic Kerbal Space Program is approaching its release date. And as the countdown to launch grows nearer, the developers have released an animated video. Is it an edutainment piece on how space travel works? Is it a game tutorial? If you’ve played Kerbal Space Program before, you can probably guess that the answer is “both”.
This particular video is called “missing the ground”. In short, it’s all about how you can throw a fancy rock so hard that it never actually hits the ground. Some may call this an “orbit”, but they’re nerds.
The video features a fan-favorite character, Valentina Kerman, as the animation’s central character. And if this is any indication, we can look forward to many more like it to come. Space travel is complicated, after all – “it’s literally rocket science” seems to be Kerbal Space Program’s punchline.
“Missing the Ground” is one of the early tutorials in Kerbal Space Program 2, part of a series of animated tutorial videos to improve the onboarding experience of KSP 2 while learning about various science concepts. These video tutorials are the introduction to concepts after which players will experience interactive tutorials to further learn the concepts shown in the videos,” says developer Intercept Games.
It’s a fairly ingenious tactic. Videos like this will have broad appeal beyond the gaming realm, and edutainment is a well-liked genre by fans. The content is engaging to nearly every demographic – even long-time fans will have something to look forward to if they appreciate Kerbal Space Program’s sense of humor. They may understand the complex topics already, but that need not be a problem.