The official line apparently, if anyone cared to ask NASA, is that “the game is still in development” but for those in the know legal action between the company employed to write the game code and the game-engine provider has frozen progress on a NASA stand alone, single player video game
This is not to be confused with the 1986 Virgin Dan Dare video game pictured above or NASA’s Massively Multi-Player Online Role Playing (MMPORG) project or the recent Glenn Research Center’s procurement process; although Glenn’s game is very similar to the game held in legal hellAccording to sources close to the whole process it all began a couple of years ago, in August 2006, when NASA started work with other organisations to create this now frozen stand alone game that would use NASA images and data and other material
The NASA centres involved in this effort were Goddard and Marshall
Game design work went on for a year with all the background material being pulled together and a lot of the 3D modelling done for the vehicles etc that would be featured in the game
But since July 2007 the whole thing has been on hold as the two companies contracted to deliver the actual game software engage in litigation against each other over the engine, despite the fact that the company using the engine has used the third party’s engine for previous projects – go figure
The game was to be a precursor to the MMPORG NASA planned under its eLearning roadmap and a way of testing the water to see if such a game would be popular
Since then NASA has decided to go ahead with the MMPORG anyway and a good thing too
