The Star Rangers video game incorporating NASA content is being released July 7th, 2016, on Steam Early Access, the name of the game service owned by Valve, the world’s preeminent publisher of games. Star Rangers will be featured prominently on the store while it’s gaming community works with the developers to refine it and create opportunities for user-created content, like music, texture, and stories.
Khal Shariff, a creative developer and CEO of Project Whitecard Studios in Winnipeg, Canada, spent part of the last year completing an office network with launch partners in Seattle and Florida, as part of Canadian Digital Media Network’s Soft Landing program.
While his team finished the scientifically-accurate game that’s been 28 months in the making with a budget of 2.8 Million dollars that took as many more months to raise, Khal made use of time with Valve in Seattle in the spring to refine Whitecard’s corporate culture and marketing plan for Star Rangers, scoped out an office downtown, and audited astronaut training in Florida with partner Project Possum.
Future space explorers may finally play the Star Rangers video game on their PC, Mac or Linux computer through the Steam store. Star Rangers is a game that allows game players to experience being an astronaut, realistically, in the near future, about the year 2035.
The game includes information on the solar system, which was provided by NASA, assistance from the University of California Irvine, who in turn brought the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the MacArthur Foundation to back the endeavour to introduce real science content into a video game. The Canada Media Fund also backed the effort with about 1 million dollars to produce the game. An original musical score was funded by Factor (dot) ca with Winnipeg musicians and has arrived on iTunes.