Spotlight: Universe Sandbox (PC)

“The only way you’re going to see the inside of a spaceship is if you were cleaning it.”

Antonio Freeman to his son Vincent in the movie Gattaca (1997)

It was Vincent’s dream to travel the galaxy, to make it to space regardless of  how, despite the short-comings he possessed, as thought by society.  Though my favorite film of all time takes place in the “not too distant future” seemingly the prime institution regarding space travel and the people of the time did not have Universe Sandbox.

You don’t have to be an astronomical physicist, the hobbyist with the telescope looking at the stars or a celestial navigator first class to appreciate space and all that it’s capable of, whether it is real or not. In Universe Sandbox you are granted control of the cosmos. You can, as our fearless Editor-In-Chief did, increase the size of sun to 200 times its original size or do what I did and effect the gravity of Saturn, sending its moons throttling through the final frontier. There are different modes and the ability to add another planet to the mix, to spice things up as it were, are all possibilities.

To have an interest in space may help but all the interactions in Universe Sandbox are precisely done. Everything looks great and the pseudo-tutorial, as it allows you to explore a wide variety of options throughout this time, is easy to absorb and doesn’t take long. This allows you to experiment quickly with the correct knowledge needed.

As mentioned before, while an interest in binary stars, moons and essentially anything past Earth’s Exosphere may help facilitate your experience, Universe Sandbox is something that is worth checking out. It is polished and as Vincent said as he finally made his way into space…

“Of course, they say every atom in our bodies was once part of a star. Maybe I’m not leaving… maybe I’m going home.”

Download Universe Sandbox HERE or on Steam HERE