Your rocket. Your problem.
You and your friends run the whole program. Some of you ride the rocket. Everyone else gets it ready, then runs to the firing room to keep them alive.
Get it on the pad
Drive out, hook up the fuel, bolt the hatch and beat the storm. Nothing stops you skipping a job. It just comes back later as short fuel or a hatch nobody closed.
Run the count
Take a desk in the firing room. Every desk has big switches, one green screen and one thing it's responsible for. Call GO when you believe it.
Press the button
When something breaks, the desk that owns it shows one plain instruction and the switch that fixes it lights up. Somebody has to get there in time.
It will blow up.
Engines quit, fuel lines tear and storms roll in over the pad. Rockets fail in a lot of different ways, and every one of them is somebody's fault.
Talk them home.
The crew in the capsule can see that something is wrong. They can't see how to fix it.
The ground can see the fix. They can't reach the switch.
So you get on the radio and talk. Nobody gets home on their own.
Meanwhile, the papers are printing.
Take the camera with you and film the flight. The papers print what you bring back, and Congress reads the papers.
Do well at the hearing and the money keeps coming. Get your funding cut twice in a row and the program is cancelled.
A chimp goes first.
You start with a fifteen-minute hop and one very brave chimp. You finish by landing your friends on the Moon.
Mercury-Redstone
Straight up and straight back down.
Mercury-Atlas
One astronaut, all the way round the world.
Gemini-Titan
Two seats, a walk outside and a docking.
Saturn
Three friends on the biggest rocket ever built.
Film from the Cape.
How many people do I need?
Two is enough to finish the game. It's made for 2 to 8, and it gets louder with every friend you add.
Do I need to know anything about rockets?
No. Every job is one plain instruction and one big control. The hard part is your friends.
Is it a simulator?
No. It's a party game that happens to be about the space race. The history is real and the physics are for fun.
When does it come out?
There's no date yet. It's coming to Steam on PC, and the store page will be linked here when it opens.