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Watch trailer on Steam ↗Space Cadets: Engineering Corps
Dead Load Games · Published by Dead Load Games
Last updated 28 Sept 2026
Survey planets. Obliterate the locals. Invest in your ship. An action packed rougelite where the engineering crew you hire is either your greatest asset or your worst enemy, sometimes both at the same time. Don't fret, they always mean well.
Action · 2026 · More free games
About this game
Welcome aboard Captain, we've read your resume and we're excited to have you at the helm. Don't worry, we know you're new to this, so we'll be sending some of our new engineering recruits along to keep things running smoothly. Just so you know, the engineers, they love to tinker.
ABOUT:
Space Cadets: Engineering Corps is a 2D, top-down shooter rougelite where you take some control over a well tested and thoroughly over designed variety of space ships to survey planets for a company who mostly just files your findings into reports no one reads.
You've got a ship, a weapon, your cunning, and a full department of engineers on-board with so much confidence things are sure to work out, be nice to them, they're still learning.
Fly, survey, fight, survive and earn research points to spend on your crew and your ship in the hopes things get a little easier.
YOUR SHIP IS NOT YOUR OWN:
Every 60 seconds those engineering rascals might come up with an idea on how to improve the ship, they insist they're all good ideas and if it looks like they aren't then its definitely a you problem. The engineering team wanted me to convey some of the experimental systems they plan on testing, "Sometimes you'll get shields that explode, other times the hull will...well, lets just say the hull isn't as required as you'd think".
What if you don't like their ideas? Well as all my managers have told me, fear is a great management tool. If you've got the staff for it, you can always fire one of them if you don't like their little shenanigans. Don't mind the begging they do.
EVERY LOSS IS A LEARNING OPPORTUNITY:
Between runs your engineers have volunteered to fill out the ISC Form 27-B (Loss of Vessel) on your behalf. Don't worry, their opinion on what went wrong is always professional in assigning the blame...to you.
We have been authorised Captain, to give you access to Research Points allowing you to improve your ship, hire engineers, train engineers, fire engineers, or give your engineers a bonus, definitely give them a bonus, they could really do with a bonus. There are plenty of abilities and ships for you to unlock, we asked the engineers why they locked them in the first place and all they said was "Are you kidding? WE barely know what half this stuff does!".
EXPERIENCE ALL THE UNIVERSE HAS TO OFFER:
Each solar system you explore is randomly generated. With an ever intensifying asteroid field, derelict ghost ships, comets, merchants, auditors, rouge engineers and so much more you'll, to quote engineering, "Just go absolutely mad trying to figure out whats good and whats...less good out there".
You'll also be able to make temporary improvements to your ship based on your ability to conduct 'percussive negotiations' with the locals allowing you to scavenge alien technology, giving it your engineers to "make things that blow up good".
SPACE IS LONELY, WHAT ABOUT FRIENDS:
Multiplayer for up to four-players. Everyone experiences the same solar system in parallel racing to blow things up and complete planet surveys for points engineering deemed "Totally worthless but unbelievably essential". Engineering even managed to develop special spy technology allowing you to get a snapshot of what your rivals are up, they even came up with some ideas to meddle in their projects. Spend espionage tokens to arrange a really bad day for your fellow captains. We couldn't convince the engineering division to stay away for this either, thats right, they're coming with you except they'll be deploying the same modifications to everyone's ships at the same time.
FEATURE OVERVIEW:
Manual aiming (unless the engineers get their hands on the weapons).
Fast runs, up to 15-20 minutes.
Multiple ship archetypes each with unique attributes and gameplay.
Explore randomly generated solar systems.
Meddlesome engineering staff who are TRYING to help.
Tricky Towers inspired multiplayer (up to 4-Players, Online Only)
Multiple experimental weapon types
In-run xp level-ups and meta currency
FINAL NOTE FROM THE DEVELOPER:
There is full controller, macOS, LINUX and steamdeck support for the game. We've got steam cloud saves and acheivements. And a free demo so that the engineering department can disappoint you before any money changes hands.
System Requirements
Will my PC run this? →Minimum
- Requires a 64-bit processor and operating system
- OS: Windows 10 64-bit
- Processor: Intel Core i3-6100 / AMD Ryzen 3 1200
- Memory: 4 GB RAM
- Graphics: Intel HD Graphics 620 / NVIDIA GTX 750 / AMD RX 560
- DirectX: Version 11
- Storage: 3 GB available space
- Additional Notes: Internet required for multiplayer.
Recommended
- Requires a 64-bit processor and operating system
- OS: Windows 10/11 64-bit
- Processor: Intel Core i5-8400 / AMD Ryzen 5 2600
- Memory: 8 GB RAM
- Graphics: NVIDIA GTX 1060 / AMD RX 580
- DirectX: Version 12
- Network: Broadband Internet connection
- Storage: 3 GB available space
Supported Languages
*languages with full audio support
Latest news
Patch NotesOfficial
Developer Update #9
Hi Again Everyone!So, just providing another regular update to the development progress of the game. Well, its been all systems go for me and mostly in an area I'm not so great at....marketing. Small post this week because its been a lot of work for maybe not so much to show for it haha. New Engineering Events!So, I had a sort of revelation while I was adding some more visual interest to the game (bloom, 2D lighting etc). This system that makes the 2D game feel more lifelike...I think the engineers could mess with this.So, that led to a few new engineering events that a less of a +stat/-stat trade off, and are more along the lines of +stat/change how you play balance.So, what we've got are:+SHIELDS but all the light effects in the game are turned way up!+SPEED, +HANDLING, but weapons auto fire...and the ship now follows your cursor around...but more importantly, some of the engineering events now have ways of sticking around...+DAMAGE, +CRIT CHANCE but someone turned off all the external lights...engineering won't say who.These are all added to the DEMO version of the game today, I think they're amongst the most fun and think they earn their place in the demo no problems. Excited to get them out there.Now, as for what the vast majority of my time was spent on...Marketing!Yay...well no its not super exciting for everyone else, but it has been a huge amount of work on my part and I'm actually really proud of it. These posts are acting sort of as a record for me of how the game is evolving over time so I thought why not include this here...in case you haven't seen it, here is the old marketing...Along with new trailers, these are the versions I went through last week. Anyways, thanks for reading, till next week!Read full article on Community Announcements (Jords)AnnouncementsOfficial
A Message from the Developer #8
Hi again everyone,The last week has been a big one but mostly for the work involved rather than the changes that got made.So, this week worth of work was centred around two main changes, one was a sort of visual pass on the game to make it look a bit more exciting and the other big change was the addition of what I'm calling the 'Fileroom'.Visual UpgradesSo, I realised after some play that the game just looked a little flat during gameplay. So I decided to add a few visual elements and layers to give that extra juice that I think makes the game pop a little bit more. So, below you can see the previous look of the game without the visual upgrades:So, the stuff that I've changed kind of summed up:Added a new parallax background nebula layer for additional colourAdded a new parallax background layer with asteroids and space junk that increases in frequency near planetsAltered the boost speed effectsAll HUD elements got a slight alteration to give them a bit of visual interestThe different weapons, celestial bodies, bullets, exhaust etc etc has been given bloomOverall, I'm really happy with the changes as I feel that it gives the whole game a bit more visual depth!The FileroomThis one is a little bit more on the boring side truthfully but it was a lot of work and I'm really happy with the result. Essentially its a sort of in-game codex for things as you unlock them or come across them so you can sort of keep track of things you have and haven't seen, what they do etc. Here it is is, not a super interesting screenshot but I think its a big quality of life boost.And thats it for this week, there were a few minor bug fixes, but those are the main changes. The last thing that took up a huge amount of time (because its really not what I'm good at) was re-doing the main trailer for the game to replace the existing for the new visual upgrade. In terms of whats next, as with basically everything I add to the game I think theres a new engineering event in this new visual system ...Read full article on Community Announcements (Jords)AnnouncementsOfficial
A Message From the Developer #7
Hey again, its the developer here once again for a quick update. The past week has been mostly focussed on improvements to the tutorial, fixing bugs, and some minor bits and pieces on the full version that I thought of.New StuffOkay, the fun stuff first, it seems those pesky engineers have snuck some mice aboard the ship...they won't reveal why, they just state its for 'research purposes'.To that end, I thought I'd show off what the engineering department is going to generally look like and what's currently in the demo version with the secret project area included!Now, that doesn't look very exciting you might say, buuuttttt I did promise the engineers I'd keep their secret, they only provided the below list of requirements they need to finish the project. I also added a method to determine how likely you are to beat a planet survey, so it's clear the challenge you're getting into. From Elementary -> Easy -> Moderate -> Hard -> Certain Evisceration. This is a little difficult to quantify, so its a formula based on your ships DPS, shield and hull.Unfortunately this is all I've had time for this week to make new stuff, the rest of my time has been dedicated to reworking the tutorial slightly and fixing bugs. So, I've got a summary below for those!Bugs and FixesMiniboss and Boss spawns had an issue where because of the camera tracking change and the asteroids still present it was too easy to die so refined this a little.Fixed an issue where some rewards weren't giving any actual benefits.Fixed an issue where increases to card rarity also weren't doing anything and refined it into a working luck stat.Added a small popup telling the player to check the management TAB.Added the ability to skip bootsplash.Fixed an issue where the boss warning was meant to give 30 seconds but was only giving 15.Not much more from me this week unfortunately, but I'm glad I could share a little bit of the process. Hopefully next week I can talk a lot more about multiplayer which is my next fo...Read full article on Community Announcements (Jords)Community & EventsOfficial
DEMO COMPETITION
DEMO CompetitionNow, I've been really excited about this one, so, I've decided to hold a little competition. I've created a leaderboard for the demo so that engineering can judge your performance, they're very particular.Along with this leaderboard, I'm adding (in today's update) a new endless mode for when you beat the final boss. I want to give you a chance to break the game with upgrades!So, the details of the competition:It runs from now until launch day (27th October 9pm AEST)Highest verified score on the leaderboard winsNow, the best part, the prizes:The top three verified entries will receive a free copy of the full game!First place will get a one of a kind, hand made Space Cadets: Engineering Corps collectible!Get out there guys, survey planets, blow stuff up, you know, Captain Stuff!Disclaimer: Collectible shipped worldwide. If shipping to your country isn't possible, an alternative prize will be arranged. Winners will be contacted through Steam to arrange steam keys and postage. Winners have 14 days to respond or the prizes will pass to the next verified entrant on the leaderboard.Take a look at the photos for a quick peak at that collectible. Just to give you an idea, this is the latest prototype I've been working on (its clearly got some fixes needed) but I'll post some more photos and videos of it when I'm making the final version!If you're interested in how its been made, I took some photos of the process which you can see below. Over the next few weeks I'll provide more photos and videos of it being made, especially when I've prototyped enough to make the final version!Thanks for reading! Happy flying.Read full article on Community Announcements (Jords)AnnouncementsOfficial
A Message From the Developer #6
Hey again!So, the demo went live, I put out a few extra posts over the past week but, its Tuesday so time for a proper update/post. This post is going to cover what I'm working on, some extra bits and changes for the demo, as well as a special announcement at the end!Whats in development?Well, we can split this into a few items, and in what has become extremely typical for me, scope creep. Particularly for the DEMO, now that its out there I'm struck by inspiration and have had a bunch of ideas I want included.New World Boss and Run EventNew Engineering Event Sub-typeNew World Boss/Run EventSo, this new world boss/run event, you're probably asking yourself "Well, whats a Run Event?". Essentially, its a random event that can appear at any time during your run, something like a solar flare where you have to hide in the shadow of planets to not take damage over a little while.So, I'm working on a new one, its called the ISC DEMO-lition! Now, in the demo, this will be the 'final' boss enemy which will show up at 10 minutes...or I should say every 10 minutes. So, lets take a quick look at the work in-progress DEMO-litionist. This was an earlier version that just looked ridiculous so I thought I'd show it off.Its a little rough, and I'm working to make it look a lot better, and it'll be very very different in the full game but thought I'd just capture some of the in progress shots of it.Everything in the game, though its not necessarily IN the game does have a little story that goes with it. For example, the ISC DEMO-lition:ISC DEMO-litionThe Intergalactic Space Command (ISC) deployed thousands of these ships across the universe. Engineering designed them as a fully autonomous fleet of solar system destroyers. Their prime directive was to destroy systems in the path of new intergalactic highways and trade routes. Unfortunately, the ISC didn't include a requirement that the ship distinguish friend from foe, and it looks like we're in the path of a highway.So, this one is re...Read full article on Community Announcements (Jords)
