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Deimos Games announced they're shutting down but their games code is already open source, and now both Helium Rain and Astral Shipwright will be going free to play.

In an announcement on the Steam pages for both games the developer said:

It's been about a decade since I first started prototyping a space game - one where you'd start off with a small ship and trade resources. Two games, three game engines and 15,000 copies sold later, here am I with a new life where I don't quite have the time for such work anymore.

Deimos Games will be shutting down this year. Both Helium Rain and Astral Shipwright will be going free-to-play, so that new players can still experience them in the future. As a reminder, both are also open-source, so if you were going to build anything based on these projects, you now have access to free content too. It's been refreshing to see game developers reuse code for their own projects, and I hope that will continue.

I want to thank all players who supported me on this endeavour. I'm truly happy that I was able to share my work with you.

Stranger

Pictured - Helium Rain

This means anyone can still easily check out their games, and tinker with the code to learn from or make something new. While both games code are available under the BSD license, they do use Unreal Engine, so the code is open source but it still relies on a proprietary game engine - just to be clear on that.

They both go free to play on September 1st.

Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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9 comments

NeoTheFox Aug 28, 2023
o7 it was a good run, thanks for all the fun
Termy Aug 28, 2023
Kinda sad, but at least the end is as exemplary as what came before. If every company would release this way and be open, the gaming world would be a much better place ^^
Shmerl Aug 28, 2023
So far it's not free on GOG and itch.io, but I suppose the developer just didn't get to changing that yet:

https://www.gog.com/en/game/helium_rain
https://deimos-games.itch.io/helium-rain
tuubi Aug 28, 2023
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So far it's not free on GOG and itch.io, but I suppose the developer just didn't get to changing that yet:

https://www.gog.com/en/game/helium_rain
https://deimos-games.itch.io/helium-rain

I guess you missed the last sentence of the article:

They both go free to play on September 1st.
Linuxer Aug 28, 2023
oh nice more for us very very poor people. and we are many nowadays
Purple Library Guy Aug 28, 2023
Class act. I enjoyed Helium Rain, too.
Eike Aug 28, 2023
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Don't know if native speakers feel the same, but 'free to play" always got the sound of "you can buy powerups/DLCs/hats/whatever" to me, so I'd call this just "free".
minkiu Aug 28, 2023
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Bought Astral shipwright, but havent played much since it chokes the Steam Deck and everytime I try to go settongs it crashes, I knew abot Helium being open source, but not Astral, might give it a go at making it work on the deck.
PublicNuisance Sep 6, 2023
Link for the source code for those who may want it:

https://github.com/strangergwenn/HeliumRain
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