What Heavenly Bodies is
Heavenly Bodies puts you in the suit of a 1970s cosmonaut working aboard a scientific research station. You control each arm and hand separately with the left and right thumbsticks, so moving anywhere means grabbing, pushing, pulling and twisting your way along handholds, tools and machinery. Everything is physically simulated: without gravity, nothing sits still, nothing stays put, and a careless shove can send you or your equipment drifting off. The missions are drawn from real feats of space explorers and researchers, and your tasks include assembling space telescopes, maintaining delicate solar arrays and researching cosmic botany. You have only radio contact with mission control for guidance, so figuring out how to complete each scenario is part of the job. The look is a stylised 70s aesthetic influenced by archival space photography and technical illustration.
Playing together
Missions can be played solo or with a friend in local co-op, with each player controlling their own cosmonaut. Two sets of hands makes the physically simulated tasks easier to handle, since one player can hold something in place while the other works on it, but it also means you need to coordinate rather than bump into each other and send everything floating. If your group is spread across Discord, Steam's Remote Play Together lets a friend join your session over the internet. The movement system is built around a dual-analog joystick controller, so a controller is highly recommended for everyone playing. Keyboard and mouse controls are rebindable and technically supported, but they do not deliver the intended experience.
Before you start
Expect a difficult game. The whole point is that weightless motion is awkward and precise, and the scenarios get increasingly precarious as you go. Plan for a learning curve where you fumble with your own arms before the movement starts to click. There is a customisable control mode difficulty setting and rebindable controls, so you can tune how demanding the handling is for your group. A full list of accessibility features and notes is available at the Family Gaming Database if someone in your group needs that information before buying in.