10 Video Games With Incredibly Steep Learning Curves
4. Kerbal Space Program
Kerbal Space Program is pretty much what the title implies; it's a space flight simulation game built around the building of a nascent space program. Players use Kerbals, which are small, green aliens who work in the space program and help bring your rockets to orbit, but it's much more complicated than that.
The game features a realistic (meaning, it stands up to mathematics) orbital physics engine, which adds to the realism but also complicates things. You can pull off real-life orbital maneuvers, including a bi-elliptic transfer and the Hohmann transfer orbits. If you don't know what those mean, don't worry, you will!
Playing the game is almost like applying to work at NASA—it's that complex, but don't let that put you off playing it. Kerbal Space Program is an incredibly fun game, but it does require a great deal of work to learn how to play it properly.
The game puts you into a world where you need to accomplish great things, and it's about as difficult as it was for the world's real space programs. You can even get to the Moon, which is a fun accomplishment, but just as U.S. President John F. Kennedy once said,
"We do these things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard."
Hard, yes, but also fun and entertaining!