I really wanted to like this game. I really thought this one was going to be right up my alley. In the end it was a frustrating mess.

First the tutorial was as bare bones as a tutorial could be. They start you out with a plane and teach you how to put flaps on it so you can fly it, great. Then you fly it somewhat and they send you back in to the workshop to show you how to change some of the other parts here and there, great. Doesn't help you with motors, props, or landing gear or whatever. OK, cool. I however, did not want to start with a plane I wanted to start with a vehicle. I get why they went with a plane but it would have been nice to have some help with the vehicle I was trying to build. There is no tutorial for that.

It took me a few minutes just trying to figure out how to get rid of the plane on the table and find where the build parts were for vehicles. I spent about a half an hour just trying to figure out how to connect the electric motor to the hub and I never got it. The holograms are not very well defined and it seems like things just don't snap together. Frustrating. Also, working on the workshop table is a bit difficult to move around and get the right angle and view point which adds to the frustration.

I get it, developers don't want to hold your hand and let you figure it out on your own but man you gotta work with us a little bit more. How about a tutorial on vehicles, and boats as well? Did I have the wrong part for the motor to connect too? Who knows I never got anything to connect. Frustrating.

I have already seen a response to someone else about visiting the discord and asking questions when you are stuck. This does not help players when they are trying to play a game. You have to stop, load up discord go in and ask your detailed question and then wait for a response. That response could take some serious time, time you could be enjoying the game. You might get stuck again and, again you go through the same process. I know I have been through that before and its just not worth it when all is said and done.

I'll keep an eye on this one because like I said I really wanted to like this one but, unfortunately I refunded the game. I don't like refunding games. I spend a lot of my time reading, watching reviews, before buying a lot of my games because some of us have to be careful of our gaming budgets. Best of luck.

It pains me to say that this product is absolutely not ready for prime time. If it were still listed as Early Access, I'd be far more forgiving. Yet, although the first message you see after booting the game is the claim that it is "still in active development," the Steam storefront does not show it as such. And so I believe it deserves to be reviewed against the standard of a finished product.

If this game weren't tied to the KSP brand, I doubt it'd have the positive reviews that it does. But since it seems to be leaning into that angle, I will too: I'd say about 80-90% of my 300+ hours in KSP was during the alpha/beta phase. A decent chunk was before it even came to Steam Early Access. KSP was a more polished user experience in Early Access than KitHack is now, although not as pretty. Admittedly the variety of parts was more limited but nailing together a vehicle was simpler while still allowing advanced manipulation for those who cared to employ it. If two parts didn't work, it was pretty easy to suss out why. KitHack is far less forgiving in this regard. Parts may claim to be compatible but simply won't connect. In my 45 minutes of struggling to figure out why, my patience wore out. Further, the way it arranges parts in 3D space on the construction table is also far less predictable. So, while the construction UI echoes that of KSP, the experience is frustrating and bewildering.

Once you do have a vehicle, KitHack's got the physics in a more realistic place than KSP did in its alpha phase. KSP physics were never not fun but you could make the valid claim that they lacked the realism required in a simulator (check my profile for a picture of a Kerbal attempting a Kerbin landing without a spacecraft. In a time before reentry heating and personal parachutes, you could often abandon a stricken spacecraft and save a Kerbal by diving headfirst into the ground. They just built 'em different back then.) So if you only plan on downloading and driving/piloting vehicles in KitHack, then you'll have a more satisfying experience on day 1.

The controls are similar to KSP - that is to say, not extremely intuitive but very usable with some practice (but God help you if you try to make sense of the control options in the settings menu). I also appreciate that you control an avatar that can move and interact with your vehicle--it helps ground the RC trope--but it's buggier than when you're controlling the vehicle itself, making you wonder if it acts more as a hurdle to gameplay than an element of immersion.

Ultimately, what I think is going on is that the game puts the cart before the horse. When KSP started, nobody ever thought it would expand in the scope that it did. It nailed the very basics first then, after years and years, it slowly expanded to the point that people wondered how a developer could be so naive as to develop it in 32-bit. Kithack instead has an expansive world, every vehicle type, way too many parts to comprehend at first blush, a presumably powerful but extremely unfriendly construction system, and good physics. Had it focused solely on the physics and construction for it's full release and said "hey don't be too critical, we're still developing" while fleshing out the rest of the superfluous aspects, I'd have no problem recommending KitHack for fully delivering on what it promises: Being an RC game by the KSP creator.

Ten years after it came out, SimplePlanes still delivers on KitHack's promise. Go play SimplePlanes instead.

Yes, RC