Objects in Space physical controllers Mark II – a set of spaceship bridge panels hand-built by the developers to showcase what players can build at home. The game, which was recently featured on Polygon, talks natively to Arduinos and other technology using a virtual serial port, and now, we at Flat Earth Games have released a full set of schematics, protocols and a how-to guide, publicly available from ObjectsGame.com!
In conjunction with these (which allow fans to get started building their own stuff at home), we’ve released the first episode of a new Objects in Space developer podcast, featuring siblings and Flat Earth co-founders Elissa and Leigh Harris discussing the origins of the game and the roadmap between now and release.
If this is your first time reading about it, Objects in Space is a modempunk, stealth-focused space-trading game for PC, Mac and Linux set in a distant star cluster called Apollo where, having lost all contact with Earth, several million people carry on humanity as best they can. The player is a freelancer, a newcomer to Apollo who must learn how to navigate its promises and pitfalls, taking jobs where they can find them and learning who to trust and who to fear.
The physical controllers for Objects in Space allow the player to control almost every function of their in-game ship using real-world buttons, switches, gauges and even an ignition key.
The ship movement panel enables you to rotate the ship, fire or stop main engines, hit the emergency stop, cancel autopilot’s current orders, shows your current speed and heading, allows use of your jump drive, and enters or exits EmCon mode: short for Emissions Control – this is your stealth mode.
The centre panel houses the keyboard, the ignition lock and button (which requires an actual key to activate your ship), and a set of 2.1 speakers to really bring your ship to life.
The weapons panel enables the player to switch between torpedo tubes, spin up their weapon of choice and, with the lifting of the safety latch, fire at a nearby target.
The right free-standing panel is the damage display – a Christmas tree of LEDs indicating the exact status of every system and module on the ship.
Finally, the left free-standing panel is the power display – which has the Possible Collision Event (P.C.E) master alarm, switches for manually turning on or off your ship’s modules, working gauges which show power gain/drain and total power stored in your batteries, and last but not least a working fan to indicate whether or not your reactor is currently on.
Of course, these are just our ideas! By far the biggest and best controllers won’t be made by us here at the studio, but by fans. Our entire mission here is to enable people to be creative with their own setups.
Objects in Space will be released for PC, Mac and Linux in late 2016.