GamerDEAL

The world of simulation gaming is about to get a thrilling new addition with Airport Contraband, the roguelike Customs Officer simulation game from DRAGO Entertainment. Announced moments ago at the OTK Winter Expo, the game is set for a public playtest in January 2026 on PC via Steam, inviting players to decide whether to enforce the law or bend it for personal gain.

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A New Simulation Experience from DRAGO Entertainment

DRAGO Entertainment, the Polish studio behind the million-selling Gas Station Simulator, is expanding its expertise in simulation games with a daring twist. Airport Contraband places players in the heart of Caldora Airport, a tropical travel hub where every passenger and piece of cargo must be scrutinized. Unlike traditional simulation games, this roguelike experience incorporates high-stakes moral choices, procedural gameplay, and escalating challenges that test both strategy and ethics.

In Gas Station Simulator, DRAGO demonstrated their ability to create immersive management experiences, complete with detailed systems, upgrades, and player-driven progression. Airport Contraband takes this foundation further, adding law enforcement mechanics, advanced scanning systems, and interactive decision-making under pressure. Players will feel the weight of every action as they navigate between duty, temptation, and danger.

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Step Into the Role of a Customs Officer

At Caldora Airport, no two shifts are alike. Players are tasked with guiding passengers and inspecting cargo while managing potential threats. Using identification scanners, chemical test kits, X-ray machines, and other tools, officers can detect illegal goods, ranging from contraband electronics to narcotics. Each decision affects the player’s reputation, risk of exposure, and potential rewards.

The roguelike structure means that shifts reset daily, but each day carries consequences. Lessons learned, upgrades unlocked, and prior choices influence future opportunities. For instance, missing a suspicious package may lead to higher security scrutiny the following day, while successfully thwarting a smuggling attempt could yield enhanced equipment like UV lamps, knives, and crowbars. This evolving gameplay loop encourages careful planning and reactive problem-solving in real time.

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The Temptation of Corruption

Airport Contraband does not shy away from ethical ambiguity. Beyond standard customs enforcement, players can engage in illicit activities with the local cartel. Accepting bribes, smuggling drugs onto flights, and ignoring suspicious passengers offer quick monetary gains—but at the cost of morality and potential in-game consequences.

The game balances risk and reward carefully. Being caught collaborating with smugglers could result in immediate in-game penalties or long-term repercussions, while ethical gameplay offers slower, steadier progression. This duality adds depth to the simulation and emphasizes player choice, ensuring that no two playthroughs are ever identical.

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Combat, Tools, and Tactical Gameplay

Not all travelers are cooperative. Players may encounter unruly or combative individuals attempting to flee or conceal contraband. Airport Contraband equips the officer with a range of tactical tools including tasers, handcuffs, and unlockable items for inspections. Players must make real-time decisions to neutralize threats without endangering themselves or innocent travelers.

The gameplay also integrates technical inspection systems. X-ray scanners reveal hidden compartments in luggage, chemical analyzers detect substances, and UV lamps uncover forged documents or concealed items. This combination of tactical and procedural mechanics elevates the simulation beyond typical management games, providing a sense of urgency, realism, and immersion.

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Community Playtest and Early Access

DRAGO Entertainment has opened sign-ups for the January 2026 playtest, marking the first opportunity for players to step behind the customs desk at Caldora Airport. This playtest allows enthusiasts to provide direct feedback, shaping the development of Airport Contraband before its wider release.

Joanna Tynor, CEO of DRAGO Entertainment, emphasized the unique challenge of merging simulation gameplay with roguelike unpredictability. “Each shift on the job is different, and you’ll have to make important, on-the-fly decisions that will impact your future,” Tynor explained. Players participating in the playtest will experience the first glimpse of this dynamic system, while helping DRAGO refine mechanics, balance, and content.

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About DRAGO Entertainment

Founded in 1998 in Kraków, Poland, DRAGO Entertainment has a longstanding history in game development, initially working on international projects as an external contractor. Since 2018, the studio has shifted focus to high-quality internal productions, building a talented team dedicated to delivering internationally competitive simulation games.

Their flagship title, Gas Station Simulator, released in September 2021, became an immediate bestseller on Steam. With Airport Contraband, DRAGO is broadening its horizons, combining the studio’s proven simulation expertise with procedural roguelike gameplay and morally complex decision-making.

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Summary

Airport Contraband promises a deep, immersive, and morally complex simulation experience, merging procedural roguelike elements with realistic airport customs operations. Players can enforce the rules with precision or explore the darker side of contraband and bribery, all while navigating unpredictable challenges. With the January 2026 playtest on PC via Steam, the gaming community now has a chance to influence development firsthand. For simulation enthusiasts, tactical gameplay fans, and anyone intrigued by high-stakes decision-making, Airport Contraband offers a compelling, adrenaline-filled journey into the world of airport security.

The reveal of Kitten Space Agency (KSA) marks one of the most ambitious undertakings in modern simulation gaming, signaling a new era for players seeking deep technical authenticity, advanced physics modeling, and unprecedented involvement in the development process. With its newly released pre-alpha, now available for free through the Ahwoo platform, the project opens its doors to players, engineers, modders, and space enthusiasts eager to help shape what may become the next defining title in the genre. Built by a team combining veteran developers, aerospace professionals, and some of the most influential members of the Kerbal modding community, KSA positions itself as a spiritual successor to Kerbal Space Program while carving out its own bold identity.

A Vision Built by Industry Veterans

The foundation of KSA rests on a cross-disciplinary team whose expertise spans game development, real-world spaceflight operations, and community-driven modding. Central to this effort is Dean Hall, known globally for creating DayZ and leading projects such as Icarus and Stationeers. Working alongside Hall is Felipe Falanghe, the original creator of Kerbal Space Program, whose early work on orbital mechanics and player-driven experimentation helped transform an entire genre.

Joining them is Stefan Moluf, a former SpaceX flight controller, whose experience with real launch sequences, mission routing, and spacecraft operations brings a layer of authenticity typically absent from entertainment-focused simulators. This expert core is reinforced by some of the Kerbal community’s most respected modders—JPLRepo, Blackrack, Linx, and Daishi—whose combined portfolio exceeds five million downloads. Their deep familiarity with aerodynamic modeling, environmental rendering, surface detail generation, and life-support simulation provides KSA with a robust technical base from day one.

Together, these contributors offer a rare blend of credibility: deep aerospace knowledge, proven game design, and years of direct community collaboration. Each element feeds into the project’s core promise—to create a living, evolving simulation built transparently with the people who will ultimately play it.

A Pre-Alpha Designed for Radical Transparency

Rather than releasing a polished marketing demo, the developers opted for a radically transparent approach: a full pre-alpha environment accessible to anyone, completely free. This early build allows players to explore a seamless Earth-Moon system, experiment with maneuver planning, and test the underlying physics foundations without loading screens or artificial restrictions.

The development process is fully exposed. Live changelogs, engineering notes, and early prototypes are shared openly on Discord, where more than 35,000 participants—including aerospace professionals—actively follow progress and submit feedback. Each contribution influences priorities for subsequent updates, effectively turning players into collaborators and advisors rather than passive consumers.

This model is supported through Ahwoo, a platform designed specifically for nontraditional development cycles. While the game remains free to download, players can voluntarily contribute funds directly to the team. These contributions support server infrastructure, feature expansion, physics refinements, and the continuation of KSA’s transparent development philosophy. Instead of purchasing a static product, supporters effectively become mission partners, investing in the game’s ongoing evolution.

A New Simulation Framework: BRUTAL

At the technological heart of KSA lies BRUTAL, RocketWerkz’s internally designed framework engineered to give full autonomy to the development team. Unlike engines that require external support or impose limitations on physics simulation and rendering, BRUTAL grants the developers complete freedom to modify systems at any level—from orbital mechanics to fluid dynamics to planetary rendering.

This framework enables several key advancements visible even in the pre-alpha stage:

Two-Body and Multi-Body Orbital Mechanics
The early build supports precise orbital calculations across a test solar system, enabling realistic trajectory predictions and maneuver planning. These mechanics are core to enabling future expansions, including interplanetary missions and complex gravitational interactions.

Seamless Celestial Transitions
Players can move from Earth’s atmosphere into orbit and on toward the Moon or other test bodies without a single loading screen, made possible by BRUTAL’s dynamic level-of-detail system, real-time terrain streaming, and physically accurate atmospheric transitions.

Advanced Visual Rendering
With contributions from modders behind Scatterer, Parallax, and other high-end Kerbal visual mods, KSA’s environments feature volumetric clouds, atmospheric scattering, and high-resolution terrain displacement, all designed to enhance immersion without compromising performance.

Modding-First Architecture
BRUTAL allows modders deep access to game systems from the earliest days of development, aiming to replicate and eventually expand upon the flexibility that helped Kerbal thrive for more than a decade.

These advancements position KSA not just as another space game, but as a technical platform intended to evolve continuously alongside its community.

A Collaborative Community Mission

More than a simple testing environment, the KSA community functions as the engine driving the project’s long-term vision. Each update is shaped by developer–player dialogue, structured discussions, and hands-on iteration. From reporting flight control bugs to suggesting quality-of-life improvements or drafting entirely new gameplay systems, players contribute directly to shaping the mission’s trajectory.

Developers treat supporters as active mission participants. Contributions are not framed as purchases but as directed investments toward specific goals—feature development, environmental expansions, physics improvements, or multiplayer infrastructure. In return, contributors gain access to a fully transparent development lifecycle, including internal notes that game studios rarely make public.

This reciprocal model—the first of its kind at this scale—creates a shared sense of ownership. Whether a player is adjusting orbital parameters, suggesting progression mechanics, or building future mod frameworks, every participant helps determine the path KSA takes.

A Platform That Reinvents Distribution

KSA’s release through Ahwoo is a deliberate deviation from traditional storefronts. Conventional platforms emphasize completed products, trailers, and opaque development cycles. Ahwoo instead supports continuous iteration, direct support, and experimental models that do not fit neatly within commercial marketplaces.

With instant access to the latest builds, players can test new features the moment they are deployed. Developers, in turn, benefit from rapid feedback loops and the ability to deploy experimental mechanics without gatekeeping or approval delays. This tight integration fosters a highly adaptive, technically curious environment where features evolve based on community needs rather than market trends.

Ahwoo’s direct contribution framework further reinforces transparency. Every dollar goes directly to the project rather than disappearing into storefront overhead or publisher fees, enabling a sustainable model for long-term simulation development.

Summary

Kitten Space Agency represents a bold reimagining of what spaceflight simulations—and game development itself—can be. Built by an elite team of developers, aerospace specialists, and world-class modders, the project merges technical accuracy with thriving community collaboration. Its pre-alpha release, available for free, invites players to join a transparent, evolving mission powered by BRUTAL, a framework engineered for accuracy, flexibility, and scientific fidelity. By embracing openness, leveraging real-world expertise, and empowering players through the Ahwoo platform, KSA positions itself as a true successor to Kerbal’s legacy and a transformative new force in the space simulation landscape.

Bouncing Back to Arcade Glory

In a gaming landscape utterly dominated by the detailed simulation and complex mechanisms of the NBA 2K series, finding an approachable, family-friendly basketball title has become a formidable challenge. Enter NBA Bounce, a deliberate throwback to the arcade era, developed by Unfinished Pixel SL and published by Outright Games Ltd. This title attempts to carve out a niche by offering a simplified, engaging 3-on-3 experience that prioritizes speed and fun over statistical depth and complex controls. For many veteran gamers, the mention of arcade basketball immediately conjures memories of NBA Jam‘s over-the-top antics; while NBA Bounce adopts this high-speed tempo, it consciously dials back the radical physics for a slightly more grounded, yet still cartoonish, style of play.

The game is overtly positioned as an entry point for newcomers and younger audiences, aiming to provide basketball excitement without the steep learning curve or the complexity of managing player tendencies and salary caps found in its simulation counterparts. The core structure is a 3-on-3 format, a departure from the classic 2-on-2 setup of its spiritual predecessors, which naturally leads to faster transitions and more open court space. Crucially, the licensing is limited, featuring all 30 official NBA teams and their corresponding mascots and arenas, but omitting the real NBA players. Instead, players utilize custom chibi-style avatars, which can be personalized in the Locker Room with unlockable jerseys and sneakers, offering a creative outlet that appeals directly to the youth demographic.

Responsive Controls and Technical Execution

The controls in NBA Bounce are its strongest technical asset, engineered for immediate accessibility across all supported platforms, including the PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, PC (Steam), and Nintendo Switch. Actions are mapped intuitively: Cross (or equivalent) handles passing, Square handles shooting, which utilizes a power-up bar featuring a “sweet spot” for a guaranteed net, and R2 (or corresponding trigger) enables sprinting. The simplified physics mean players can easily master the basic mechanics of shooting and dribbling within minutes, making it ideal for the drop-in, drop-out nature of local multiplayer. Even defensive actions, such as shot blocking, rebounding, and stealing, while requiring precise timing, remain streamlined enough that the learning curve is exceptionally flat.

Beyond the input design, the game demonstrates solid technical optimization, particularly in its performance metrics. While the graphics are intentionally simple and stylized the trade-off is a phenomenal and fluid framerate that remains stable even during chaotic 4-player local co-op sessions. This technical stability ensures that the gameplay feels responsive and lag-free, which is paramount in a fast-paced arcade environment where split-second timing, particularly on shots and blocks, is crucial for success.

Diverse Game Modes and Multiplayer Mayhem

NBA Bounce offers a respectable suite of game modes that enhance its replayability and family appeal. Players can engage in a standard Quick Match, embark on a competitive Tournament (styled after the NBA Playoffs), or grind through a Full Season, which, according to the store page, suggests up to 82 games. While the Season mode is robust in length, it lacks fundamental long-term tracking features like detailed player statistics or All-Star events, which ultimately limits its appeal for dedicated solo players. The inclusion of a robust Training mode is a welcome technical feature, offering dedicated tutorials to help players improve lay-ups and timing without the pressure of a live game.

The true highlight, and the source of the most glowing feedback including the enjoyment shared during our family weekend, is the innovative Party Mode. This mode introduces rotating, game-altering modifiers that transform the court and ball with special effects each quarter, such as an electrified basketball or hoops that randomly open and close. This chaotic system ensures no two quarters play out identically, demanding constant adaptation from the up to 4 local co-op players. The ability to play on changing and special courts with these dynamic rules successfully injects a dose of unpredictable, pure fun, providing the “unique way” of playing that families crave, turning basketball into a truly light-hearted, unpredictable, and highly collaborative experience – we really had a blast playing it.

The Cost Barrier and Content Depth

Despite its technical polish and excellent family-friendly design, the most significant obstacle facing NBA Bounce is its commercial positioning. The retail price point, consistently listed at $49.99 (or £45) across major platforms, is a high entry cost is likely a direct result of securing the official NBA license for all team names, logos, and mascots, but it creates a difficult value proposition for many players as currently the title omits online multiplayer, statistical career tracking, and deep player customization beyond cosmetics, its definitely a drawback.

The overall longevity of the game is further hampered by its content structure. Outside of the engaging Party Mode, the primary rewards for winning games—especially within the lengthy Season mode—are limited largely to cosmetic collectibles, such as alternate jerseys, basketball variants, and mascot unlocks. While the ability to use mascots like the Chicago Bulls’ Benny or the Denver Nuggets’ Rocky in the game adds a charming layer of fan service, the overall feeling is that the gameplay works entirely on the surface, offering little reason for dedicated solo play once the core loop has been mastered.

Final Verdict

NBA Bounce achieves exactly what it sets out to do: provide a polished, accessible, and fast-paced 3-on-3 basketball game for the entire family. Developed by Unfinished Pixel SL, the title benefits from strong technical performance, confirmed on various setups including high-spec PCs and portable consoles, ensuring a reliable and fluid gameplay experience. Its success lies in its simple, responsive controls, the inclusion of all official team branding, and, critically, the fantastic, highly variable Party Mode that truly shines in 4-player local co-op. Its full retail price of nearly $50 remains the primary hurdle to its outright recommendation I however still believe it’s really worth it especially for families seeking shared fun and basketball lovers that grew on the old style NBA Jam games.

Our score: 8 out of 10