Apollo 11 Lunar Landing Demo

Apollo 11 Lunar Landing Demo is a freeware Edutainment and Tech Demo Game released by Nvidia in 2015 to showcase the graphical capabilities of it's graphics cards and Unreal Engine 4. Players observe a moment in time based on NASA's historic Apollo 11 mission to the Moon, using a variety of controls to adjust visual parameters, camera location, and other settings.

You can download the demo for Microsoft Windows systems equipped with a compatible graphics card on the Nvidia website here. It can also be played on the GeForce Now game streaming service. NVIDIA posted a video to YouTube about the demo which can be watched here.

Different from the classic arcade game Lunar Lander.

• All There in the Manual: The in-game assets do little to fully explain what is happening, outside of some explanatory tooltips on settings. Further information on what is occurring or about the demo must be acquired outside the game.
• Costume Porn: The space suits are made with extremely high detail, highlighting wrinkles, visor reflections, and other details.
• First-Person Snapshooter: The player can elect to manually position the camera instead of the default orbit. Several presets recreate iconic shots. The exposure can also be adjusted, allowing the player to experiment with creative approaches to photography, or to see levels required to capture stars from the lunar surface.
• Gold Makes Everything Shiny: The gold colored foil on the lander reflects light brilliantly, giving it an impressive sheen.
• Historical Domain Character: Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin are the only two astronauts to make an appearance.
• In-Universe Camera: Played with. The player's camera acts like one, but doesn't physically exist in the level. However the camera held by Neil Armstrong does exist in the level, and the player can select "REF PHOTO" in order to peer through it.
• In-Universe Game Clock: The position of the sun can be altered from the default in order to showcase different reflections and shadows.
• Lens Flare: Produced by the camera if the sun gets in the shot.
• Practical Voice Over: Recordings of audio relating to the mission play over the scene.
• Reality Is Unrealistic: The stars are not visible from the moon. This seems like an oversight unless the player remembers to appropriately adjust their camera exposure, making them visible at the expense of washing out everything else.
• Scenery Porn: The reason the demo was created. It beautifully recreates a single moment in time in incredible detail. As a result the incredible desolation and loneliness of the lunar surface stands in stark contrast to its comparatively small human visitors.
• Tech Demo Game: Originally was released to showcase the high end 900 series cards by Nvidia. An Nvidia blog post covers how it later received an update to showcase real time ray tracing in 2019 for the 50th anniversary of the Moon landings.
• Technology Porn: The lunar lander, the individual space suits, and other equipment is rendered in great detail.