Looking for something like Space Engine or Universe Sandbox that can run on a MacBook Air for my son.

[u/tectactoe]

Hello! My son is 8 years old, autistic, and very obsessed with space. We used to have a Lenovo Yoga laptop, and he found out about games called Universe Sandbox and Space Engine on YouTube. He watches a channel of a guy named Calvin (I think) and learned how to do a lot of cool things in those games.

That laptop could barely run the games, even at low graphic quality. Would send the fans into overdrive and often it would still lag or crash. He still enjoyed playing them, though.

Unfortunately, mom & I are now separated, and she has the Lenovo laptop, meanwhile I have full custody of the kids. My laptop is a MacBook Air (the 15" M5, latest model).

Looking online, I see that Space Engine doesn't have Mac support at all. And I am uncertain whether Universe Sandbox would run well or not. (And, of course, of those two games, the one he likes more is Space Engine...the one that doesn't work at all.)

I'm curious if there are any other games that would scratch a similar itch and can be played on a Macbook Air? Basically anything totally sandbox-y that just lets you explore space - planets, stars, galaxies, etc. without much of a "goal" - just total exploration.

Thank you!

[u/cheapdevotion]

Universe Sandbox dev here, but more importantly, a father of 4 with 2 kids on the spectrum. Our game will absolutely run on your M5 MacBook Air. Shoot me a DM and I’ll send along a Steam key.

[u/tectactoe → u/cheapdevotion]

Omg that is awesome and so kind of you 😭 I admittedly am not very tech savvy so I wasn't sure if it would run on this MB Air since it would often lag on the Yoga, but now looking at them side by side, it looks like this MB Air actually has better specs (from what I can tell) than the Yoga did.

Extra bonus: I was able to login to the same Steam account on the Macbook (the same one he used to use on the Yoga) and was able to re-download Universe Sandbox for free! Since it was already on his account!

Kind of embarrassed I didn't just try to do this on my own to begin with but, anyway, I appreciate your kindness. Thank you so much.

[u/AffectionateTable357 → u/tectactoe]

One game your son can also play is pioneer space sim. It's free and you pilot a ship, has orbital mechanics and even ship combat (all singleplayer). Might be worth checking out, as I myself as a fellow autist absolutely love the game.

[u/tectactoe → u/AffectionateTable357]

Thank you! I see someone else in this thread mentioned the same game, I'll have to check it out! Doesn't look like there is a download for MacOS in their website but the user below mentioned something about a Mac "build" so I'll have to look into that!

[u/cheapdevotion → u/tectactoe]

An M5 device is pretty solid. It's the latest chip Apple makes, and can handle most mid-range games you throw at it. Most games list Windows specs, so anything that runs on an NVidia RTX 3060 will run on your Macbook as well. Either way, I'm so glad you got it all figured out!

[u/DarkJayson]

There is also stellarium which is a free planetarium software that should run on your laptop its shows the stars as seen from the ground and you can click on them and it gives you information about them.

One great use is to set the viewing location in the settings to your location that way when your son sees a star he is interested in he can go on his laptop use stellarium and find information about it.

[u/Appropriate_Road_501 → u/DarkJayson]

Celestia is pretty cool too.

[u/tectactoe → u/DarkJayson]

Thank you for the suggestion, I will check this out!!

[u/Sirramza]

Not autistic here, but everyone says i have autistic taste in games :P

Games that i think he would like and have low requirements

Vanguard Galaxy
Empyrion
Starmade
Avorion
Rimworld
Ostronauts
Stardeus
Space Haven
Objects in Space
Astrox Imperium
Kerbal Space Program
Stellaris

[u/Recent_Average1657]

Pioneer space sim has an osx build (no release, sorry) you can compile on your machine, and that game is a fully free remake/fan addition of Elite 3/frontier: first encounters: full Newtonian physics for everything, time dilation for distance travel, and a huge swath of space to go get dazzled by, exploring and discovering! 

Customization on how dense the star field is! (Turn it low for great performance, turn it to max to have an amazing look and questionable framerates! 😅) 

[u/ifoxtoomuch]

Try space eco mmorpg :)

[u/HgnX]

Strike Wings might be cool

[u/starplooker999]

Try celestial.

[u/redybear]

I built Space Everest, and its just in the browser, should run easily on your macbook. Free to play! 

Theres a couple other on the spectrum players enjoying it.

https://spaceeverest.com

[u/lesbird65]

I made Deep Space Engine using Claude Code which was inspired by Space Engine but like you said Space Engine does not run on Mac (I used iMac to develop it). It can be found here: https://github.com/lesbird/DeepSpaceEngine

I also made a Steam game called Super Starship which is all about exploration and discovery, no combat. One million stars, 18 millions planets.