Many children dream of becoming astronauts when they grow up. If that happened to be you, now’s your chance to fulfill that fantasy. Not only will you be piloting your (hopefully) space-bound craft in Kerbal Space Program, you also get to design it!

Kerbal Space Program tasks you with getting the titular Kerbal race into orbit. In order to accomplish this monumental feat you need to design, build, and fly the rocket yourself.

The design phase, easily the most important, also happens to be the most fun. Your design needs to be sound in order for your rocket to go anywhere, so it’s usually best to start with something based on a real life design. Too little thrust and it won’t even get off the launching pad, while too much thrust will make it uncontrollable. It sounds intimidating at first, but after a bit of trial and error you start to get a feel for what might work and what won’t.

Since the game is still technically in the alpha stage of development, the choice of spaceship parts is a bit thin. Even with a limited inventory to choose from there are still enough variations on designs to keep things interesting. The promise of a wider variety of machinery in future versions certainly is appealing, though.

Once you’ve constructed your monstrosity… ahem… your masterpiece of modern engineering, it’s time to head to the launch pad. After providing your own countdown and hitting the ignition switch, your next task is to guide your baby into space. Depending on the robustness of your design, this may or may not be easy. A quick crash and burn might be more likely for your first few spaceship designs.

What happens once you reach space? Well, nothing, really. No fanfare greets you, there isn’t any confetti or champagne. If you like you can manually set yourself into orbit around the planet, or, if you have enough fuel, simply turn around and try to land safely back on Earth.

Kerbal Space Program might still be in the early stages of development, but it manages to capture the magic of space travel perfectly. Designing and constructing rockets gave me a childlike giddiness I haven’t felt since I started playing with Legos. I’m really looking forward to seeing where the game goes from here!

Kerbal Space Program can be downloaded for free from the official website. If you’re having trouble getting started, give the official Wiki a look or check out some of the design videos players have posted on YouTube.

The post Friday Fun! Fulfill Childhood Dreams With Kerbal Space Program first appeared on Techerator.

Atom Zombie Smasher, as the name implies, is all about smashing zombies. You are tasked with cleaning up your area’s zombie (or Zed, as the game calls them) infestation and evacuating any survivors. To start, you are only given a rescue helicopter, but as you continue to evacuate territories you gain mercenaries to aid you. These mercenaries run the gamut from the incredibly useful (snipers and a roving band of soldiers) to the only useful in certain situations (zombie bait and road blocks).

Upon loading Atom Zombie Smasher, stylish graphics and swanky music bombard your senses. Like Blendo Games previous releases, everything about the game oozes retro. The soundtrack and comic book style providing the game’s minimal back story feel like they were ripped straight from the ’60s.

Once you actually get into the gameplay, the graphics are simple but elegant. Pinkish dots on the map represent zombies while yellowish dots represent the survivors. Buildings of various size fill the procedurally generated cities. Your rescue helicopter probably features the most detailed graphics in the game.

Strategic planning is the main draw of Atom Zombie Smasher. On each ‘mission’ you are only allowed certain mercenaries, so taking advantage of the strengths of those mercenaries and minimizing their weaknesses are key to success. Mess up on the planning stages and watch as all of the survivors slowly get consumed by the zombie horde.

I found the game to be a bit difficult on the default settings, but thankfully plenty of options exist to tailor the gameplay to your liking. From the options screen you can turn on things like Casual mode (or Hardcore mode if you’re crazy) or enable an option that unlocks all of the mercenaries from the start. If you really want to customize your experience check out the Mods option, where everything from the speed of humans and zombies to how long the sniper takes between shots is adjustable.

If you were wondering about the term ‘procedurally generated cities’ mentioned in this article, it’s the hook that gives the game high replay value. Nearly everything is randomly generated, which means every campaign will play out differently. In each game you get access to certain mercenaries at different times, and each city has a different layout.

If Atom Zombie Smasher sounds at all interesting (and who doesn’t find nuclear weapons and zombies interesting?), check out the trailer below or download the demo at the game’s official page. If you enjoy the demo, support awesome developers and buy the completely DRM-free full game, which works on Windows, Mac, and Linux.

httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SL0WH8ry30E

The post Midweek Fun: Nuke the Undead in Atom Zombie Smasher first appeared on Techerator.

The Organ Trail is a re imagining of the classic game, except set in the present day and with zombies. It features throwback graphics and classic controls (no mouse here, just selecting numbers from a menu). Instead of contracting dysentery, party members might come down with a bad case of the T-Virus. Zombies are your prey instead of rabbits and elk (though I don’t think you’ll want to carry any back to eat), and forget about fording rivers, on the Organ Trail you’ll ford seas of zombies.

If you remember how The Oregon Trail played, you’ll feel right at home. Instead of spending money at the beginning to gear up for your trip, you spend hours scavenging for certain supplies. Once on the road in your station wagon, various random events, both good and bad, interrupt your progress. You might find extra gas in an abandoned vehicle, or yes, one of your party members might get dysentery.

Cities and landmarks are interspersed along the way, giving you a chance to trade with others or buy extra supplies. Once you get near the end of the trail, the game becomes a balancing act between your dwindling supplies (do you trade your last remaining spare tire for some desperately needed food, or just cut the rations of your party members?).

Though still technically in Beta, Organ Trail offers plenty of fun and an excellent way to burn about an hour. My final score upon arriving in Oregon was 2290, are you able to beat that? Let us know in the comments section!

If you liked The Organ Trail, look back at previous Friday Fun articles and see if anything catches your eye!

The post Friday Fun! Relive Fond Memories With Organ Trail first appeared on Techerator.

If you’ve ever played the video game Asteroids, then you’ll be delighted to know that you can bring the destructive joy of this simple game to any website on the internet with a simple JavaScript bookmarklet (ok – the JavaScript isn’t simple, but clicking a bookmarklet is!).

18ish-year-old Swedish developer Erik Andersson has done a remarkable job of recreating the fundamentals of this classic game, giving you the ability to fly a spaceship around websites and blow up text, images, and advertisements.

To use the Asteroids bookmarklet, head to Erik’s Asteroids site and drag the big green button to your bookmarks toolbar, where you then can use it on any site you like.  To use Asteroids, just visit a website and click the bookmarklet once – you can then use the arrow keys to steer (forward is thrusters), shoot missiles with the Space bar, and hold B to identify targets on the website.  Your score is kept in the bottom right corner of the browser window.

Instead of telling you any more about this awesome game, how about I give you some target practice?  And remember, as the developer says, “It’s cooler if you make your own sound effects.“.

Techerator Editors (10 points):

Kittens (5 points):

???? (???? points)

The post Friday Fun! Blow Up Your Favorite Websites with a Bookmarklet first appeared on Techerator.

You play the role of Tia, a young girl celebrating her birthday. As a present, your dad gives you a card from a trading card game the local kids play. Shortly after, your friend stops by to explain the rules. Don’t worry, there’s no Magic: The Gathering level of depth to be found here, the rules aren’t much more complicated than War. Your goal is to battle each child walking around the town, acquiring their cards when you beat them.

You start to notice right away that things aren’t quite as they seem. Why did your father warn you about going near the trees? Why are their security cameras watching your every move? Why does a child’s card game feature such violent imagery? With such simple gameplay, you can devote most of your brain to pondering these questions.

The Day features standard pixel art, but it’s the music that really stands out. The jovial tune looping in the background provides contrast to the strange imagery presented. At one point in the game, spooky background noise makes the atmosphere that much creepier.

There are two ways to ‘win’ the game, and they’re mutually exclusive (you can’t do them both in the same playthrough). Don’t worry, though, you won’t spend hours on this one. You should be able see both endings in about fifteen minutes of total playtime. After finding both endings, commentary from the creator unlocks in the main menu. The commentary gives some insight into what you see during the game, and leaves you with more things to think about.

If you enjoyed The Day, check out the rest of our Friday Fun articles!

The post Friday Fun! Expand Your Gaming Horizons With ‘The Day’ first appeared on Techerator.

Liferaft: Zero is a devious blend of the setting from Portal, the acrobatics of N, and the frustrating difficulty of Jumper. You play the role of a series of clones, hopping through obstacle courses under the watchful eye of mysterious scientists. At your disposal are a standard jump, a wall jump to reach higher areas, and a grappling hook that can connect to specific points on the map, allowing you to swing across long distances.

If you impale yourself on one of the many spikes sprinkled liberally throughout the levels, you’ll respawn back at the beginning as one of your numerous clones with your previous body remaining on the map as a gruesome warning to your future selves.

The goal of each of the 30 levels is to ring a bell located somewhere in the level. Sounds easy, but ringing it is the simple part; getting there is where the fun is! On most of the levels you’ll also find a piece of candy, usually in a pretty difficult area to reach. Getting several pieces of candy unlocks bonus levels.

Make no mistake, this game is hard. The first fifteen or so levels are relatively easy, but the difficulty skyrockets quickly. Don’t even think about attempting to grab the pieces of candy in the later levels on your first time through. Not only do you have to climb into whatever nook or cranny the candy is in, you then need to make it to the exit without dying. If you’ve played the freeware game Jumper, you might start getting flashbacks.

Thankfully, Liferaft: Zero has a charm about it that diffuses some of your frustration. The humor in the game is similar to that found in Portal. Scientists peer at you through windows in the background. A line of future clones is visible, waiting patiently to be sent to their deaths. When the scientists talk to you, they address you by what number clone you are. At the beginning you are #001, but by the end you’ll likely be addressed by a number in the hundreds.

Manage to beat the game yet? I haven’t. Tell us about your experience below!

The post Friday Fun! Why Do Homework When You Can Procrastinate With Liferaft: Zero? first appeared on Techerator.

Some people go to great lengths earn achievements, and even play terrible games just for the easy Gamerscore they can earn. If you count yourself among those ranks, or if that “ten more minutes of Civilization” has ever turned into six hours, chances are you’ll love Achievement Unlocked 2.

Achievement Unlocked 2 is a direct sequel to, you guessed it, Achievement Unlocked. Don’t worry if you haven’t played the first game. While it’s fun as well, enjoyment of the second game doesn’t depend on it at all.

The gameplay in Achievement Unlocked 2 is incredibly simple: while controlling your elephant avatar using the arrow keys (Why an elephant? Why not?), you attempt to traverse the game’s levels and unlock all 250 achievements. Achievements range from the absurdly easy (“use the Internet”), to the slightly trickier (“collect all the coins on all the levels”). Chances are you’ll unlock at least ten achievements within your first ten seconds of play. Coins collected around the levels can be used to purchase ‘DLC packs’ in-game, unlocking more levels to earn more achievements.

If you have friends who share your neurotic urge to unlock achievements, Achievement Unlocked 2 also sports a co-op multiplayer mode. It’s pretty basic, but multiplayer is never a bad thing, right?

While you’ll probably start out laughing at the absurdity of it all, it’s hard to deny the draw of the game that keeps you playing. You know the achievements are completely meaningless, yet you still keep trying to unlock just one more. What started out as a quick five minute break from work quickly turns into an hour of mashing the arrow keys. Eventually you realize the futility of trying to get all 250 achievements, but if you do manage to unlock them all I applaud your perseverance. I didn’t have the willpower to keep going.

The post Friday Fun! Get That Fake Sense of Accomplishment In Achievement Unlocked 2 first appeared on Techerator.

In Pixel Legions there is only one unit type, the humble pixel. Groups of pixels are spawned in regular intervals at your square base. Pixel groups can be directed by clicking on a group and then clicking on a destination or by clicking and dragging for more complex routes. When two pixel groups of opposing colors get close enough to each other they join in battle. The goal of each level is to eliminate the opposing colors’ pixel spawning bases.

Many of the later levels start you at a distinct disadvantage to the opposing colors, but there are ways to tilt the odds back into your favor. Flanking groups of enemy pixels by attacking from multiple sides give your pixels a combat bonus. You can also halt enemy pixel production by directly attacking their base. On levels with multiple enemies you can bide your time, building up your own army while your opponents decimate each other.

Several levels introduce obstacles that alter how the game is played. For example, some levels have a “King of the Hill” area (no, not that King of the Hill). Position your base here and you will benefit from increased pixel production and a boost to your existing army’s strength.

Pixel Legions manages to provide enough strategy and tactics for RTS fans, but also keeps thinks simple enough for those not used to the fast pace of the modern RTS game.

The post Friday Fun! Get Your RTS On In Pixel Legions first appeared on Techerator.

Morplee follows the WarioWare format of throwing mini-games at you and seeing how fast you react. You’re given 60 seconds to complete 25 mini-games, running the gamut from frantically clicking as fast as you can to solving simple math problems. The twist is that the mini-games are stacked on a tower, giving you a view of three at a time that you can play in any order you choose.

On top of that, Space Invader-like enemies fall from the sky. Shoot them with your mouse before they land and start sucking your lifeforce. Take too long or lose all of your health and it’s Game Over!

There are slight variations to some of the mini-games, so even if you have one figured out you’ll still have to think quickly before you click. You’ll probably be able to finish the game in ten minutes or less, but those ten minutes will be filled with frenzied mouse movement and clicking as you try to save your home planet from the invading aliens.

I finished with a final score of 3034, can you top that?

The post Friday Fun! Get Your Flash Game Fill With Morplee first appeared on Techerator.

There are two modes of play: an automated version where you have no direct control over your army, and a more hands-on mode where you can direct the general movement of your troops. Neither offer a very deep gaming experience, but it does give you a nice diversion in which you compete with your friends to see who has the most powerful Twitter account.

In the battle below, My avatar army was able to defeat Evan’s.

See if you can best our staff! Just plug in @briannelsondsgn, @pbvinge, @JugglingPilot, @kschulte, @dpatterson, or @evanw.

The post Friday Fun: Fight Your Twitter Friends In Dot War first appeared on Techerator.