Helium Rain

Helium Rain is a realistic space simulation game.

A space sim that doesn't cheat
The massive gas giant Nema is your new home. Surrounded by rings of metal and rock, the planet is a near-infinite source of fuel. Helium Rain gives you an empire to build and defend against your competitors. It's up to you to decide if you will trade resources, avoid trouble, or start wars.


 * Fly any ship of your fleet, including fighters, freighters or capital ships.
 * Build stations, colonize asteroids, explore new areas.
 * Customize your ship, change your equipment, buy new gear.
 * Do as you please, whether you want to become a wealthy merchant or a fierce pilot.



Helium Rain is a game where everything is tied together. Ships and stations are built with resources that need to be mined, transported and traded. The steel you sell to a company will become a ship or a gun. The cargo you're blowing up will create a shortage. The blockade you're imposing will raise the prices. Helium Rain simulates a complex economy where all actions have consequences.

Spaceships
We want to build a world that feels real. Your ships have generators, radiators, weapons, engines, cargo bays or life support systems - they all work together. Every thruster on your ship plays a role. Aim for engines to pin down your enemies, or send them spinning around by destroying power stations. Most of the ships have more than thirty individual parts to target. You can customize the most important components - your main engines, attitude control thrusters and weapons. You can choose your colors, emblem, and of course, you can fly every ship in the game.



The physics of the game are highly detailed. Power-hungry components will glow red hot when cooling fails, ships and stations can be pushed or thrown out of place, and gun shells have complex trajectories.

Open-source development
The development is tracked on our public issue tracker. You can see the work being done, the features we want to add or the bugs we know of.

The game's full source code is available on Github under the MIT license. Feel free to read the code to look for interesting stuff for your own game.

About your computer
The game is built for high-end Windows and Linux computers. We recommend the following:


 * A high-end video card such as the nVidia GTX970 or the AMD R290;
 * A quad-core processor ;
 * 8GB of RAM ;
 * A modern 64-bits operating system (Windows 7 or Ubuntu 14.04).

We don't support Mac OS X or other platforms.

About the team
Helium Rain is being made by:


 * Gwennaël ARBONA 'Stranger'  - Art, UI & Game design
 * Frédéric BERTOLUS 'Niavok'  - Gameplay & Game design
 * Daisy HERBAUT - Music

We'd also like to thank Jérôme MILLION-ROUSSEAU for the game logo.

Some of us are employed by another company on top of their work in this project. This game is our own personal work and is not supported by any of our employers in any way.

When and where will the game be released?
We plan on releasing Helium Rain for PC (Windows & Linux) in Q3 2017 for Steam.

Can I record the game to create and share gameplay videos, podcasts, etc?
We enthusiastically support anyone willing to share pictures or videos of Helium Rain on the Internet, even through monetized channels. We only ask that you credit the game, either by name or through a direct link to our home page.

Why is there no Mac or console version available?
We will launch the game on operating systems that we know and use to build the game itself. We lack the time and resources to support additionnal platforms at the moment.

Are there any plans for multiplayer support?
We won’t offer multiplayer in Helium Rain, because:


 * We want to give great power to the player, such as destroying factions, starting wars or literally taking over the world ;
 * The fast, physically-based gameplay of the game wouldn’t fit multiplayer very well ;
 * We want the game to be available offline.

Is there support for modding?
Modding tools are something we'd love to add, but we face difficulties with the commercial engine we use. We don't have solid plans on this for now.