Junkyard Astronauts

BUILD · LAUNCH · REACH THE MOON

The yard opens at night, under a moon that looks close enough to reach. You are a robot with a corner workshop, a number-row inventory and a professional opinion about welding. Everything in the scrap lanes is yours if you can carry it: engines, fuel tanks, a bathtub, a beer keg, a leaf blower, a traffic cone that will absolutely serve as a nose cone.

Weld first, regret later. Sockets snap parts flush, four build assists and undo handle the rest, and a jetpack hover gets you up the tall ones. Every weld is graded from TACK to SOLID, and the physics believes the welds, not your optimism. A rocket that looks assembled is assembled. Briefly.

It tells you why it'll fail. You launch anyway. Before liftoff the yard gives its verdict, from "SHAKY - IT WILL FLY, BRIEFLY" to "IT WILL COME APART". It's advice, not a rule. Off-centre engines veer, loose fuel welds leak, and every rocket lets go at its weakest joint.

The big red button. The yard hears RANGE CLEAR, every gun goes cold, and three seconds later your junk climbs off a tiny planet. The altitude ladder calls it out to the whole yard, from "Above the junk piles" past the Karman line to the Moon, 384,400 km up. Landing not included.

Pick up the pieces. When a flight ends, the whole rocket rains back around the pad as salvage anyone can grab. Build it, fly it, pick up the pieces, fly it again. Supply crates parachute in during every shift, and they're the only place to find a Rocket Motor.

Your crewmates are the hazard. 1-4 players online or over LAN, with Mac and PC playing together. Crew up on one glorious stack and share the credit, or deploy your salvage gun and shoot the parts right out of a rival's pockets. Nobody dies. Your inventory does. The end-of-shift board hands out YARD AWARDS, and it is right about you.

Talk, or don't. Text chat and proximity voice: closer is louder, and there's a mute for the one who never stops.

Four robots, four workshops. RIVET, employee of the month four years running (sole applicant). GANTRY, the crane bot. DOZER, who has never reversed. SPARK, one wheel, no regrets.

• Weld 53 junk parts into rockets the physics engine will judge honestly

• 1-4 players online or LAN, Mac-PC cross-play, join mid-shift

• A pre-flight verdict that predicts the failure, and a launch that proves it

• An altitude ladder from the junk piles to the actual Moon

• Shoot parts off your friends; every wreck rains back as salvage

• 37 Steam achievements and two world leaderboards

• An original "scrapyard space western" soundtrack

• End-of-shift YARD AWARDS with no appeals process

• No unlocks: everything is available from the first shift

• Full gamepad support, rebindable controls, Mac trackpad support

There is also a raccoon. It does not help.