Anyone who has heard of NASA knows that it is one of the most important entities when it comes to science; however, that does not detract from what he can do outside his field. Meanwhile, as is known, video games are increasingly valuable worldwide, which is why it is becoming more common for organizations and companies to want to have some participation in the gamer world.
Now, NASA is once again present in the gaming industry, since, after joining Epic Games to develop its own metaverse of the planet Mars, it has launched a new retro-style game that emulates classic battle titles in the space and that allows to know some of the best kept secrets of the Roman telescope.
Precisely, this game has been called Roman Space Observer, because in addition to showing what this optical instrument has been able to capture, it offers the option to explore some of the most interesting astronomical phenomena in an 8-bit experience. Best of all, it is open source on the web, that is, it is free. You can try it in English or Spanish from your computer, through this link .
This is how NASA announced the launch of its new game. Photo: Twitter
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The dynamics of the game is simple, because the main objective in each game is to get the highest score and be able to beat other people’s records. The most abundant objects are swirling galaxies, although capturing objects with less visualization, such as black matter or black holes, requires more skill and experience. Also, the more challenging the capture of an object, the more points you can accumulate.
These are the scores for each item found:
The game scores based on what the user manages to find. Photo: Roman Space Observer
Epic Games and NASA team up to power a metaverse on Mars It turns out that NASA, through the HeroX platform, has announced that it will partner with Epic Games to carry out a kind of “challenge” to game developers, which consists of creating a virtual environment that replicates the territory of Mars.
The idea of this challenge is to enhance the skills of the competitors, who will have to use the new Unreal Engine 5 to recreate spaces that help prepare astronauts for an eventual trip to the red planet. This joint work is due to the fact that the company in charge of Fortnite is the one that established this graphic engine, which has been used to create digital landscapes very close to what human eyes see.
Meanwhile, the aeronautical research entity also published the resources with which participating users can support themselves to create this “world” of 400 km^2, as well as day and night cycles, the most realistic possible weather conditions, gravity simulated of said planet, among other specifications that, the more successful, the more score they will achieve.
In order to encourage competitors, there will be 20 individual prizes, four for each of the five initial categories, which have a total prize pool of $70,000. At the moment, there are more than 50 teams from different countries that have signed up for the contest. Those who wish to participate can enter this link.
What is Odin? Learn all about the new portable console to emulate retro games The new video game machine features a 5.98-inch IPS LCD screen, making it smaller than Nintendo’s hybrid console, with a comfortable ergonomic grip on both sides for added comfort. In addition, it has a deck to connect it to the TV, with which it becomes a desktop console.
Inside we find a Snapdragon 845 processor with a configuration of 4 GB of RAM, 64 GB of storage and 5,000 mAh of battery in its base version, or 8 GB of RAM, 128 GB of memory and 6,000 mAh for the Pro, according to its announcement trailer.
On the other hand, Kotaku journalist John Waler mentions that this portable console was not created to play AAA video games, but is focused on emulating retro games, a task that it fulfills perfectly, according to performance tests.
