Often when this happened, I’d have to hit pause, put the controller down, and just relax my ridiculously tense body for a bit. Often I would get so bloody livid with Astro floating off the other way I intended, then seemingly refusing to spin the right way (because I messed up), and then somehow knocking the tool I was intending to clip to my belt out of a door and into the depths of space. Still, it’s often enormously fiddly, and that’s very much the point. Instead, you swing the analogue stick at the same time as releasing your grip, to chuck it from your path.

Much the same, when you’re off on a little trip to recover asteroid samples, grabbing a rock and throwing it out of your path is so much more satisfying than pressing A to pick, then pressing B to throw, or what have you. It really is hands-on, so opening a door involves one hand grabbing the door, another the wall nearby, and then pushing off one and pulling with the other. Like Ubisoft’s Grow Home, there’s something wonderfully tactile about this approach to controls. Switch the game to Newtonian physics, and then no, there the Rules Of Space apply. It means missing a handhold isn’t the end of the world, as you can – with some effort – get yourself back to safety. On the standard settings, you can rather unrealistically “swim” in space, meaning if you manipulate Astro’s (that’s my name for him now) arms to move like a breaststroke, he’ll somewhat propel himself in that direction. Unlike Getting Over It, importantly Heavenly Bodies is actually quite forgiving. Because you’re always so close to achieving your goals, before accidentally flinging yourself out of an airlock and drifting off into space. Because as infuriated as I so often was while playing, I just kept on playing. Which is, absolutely, often intensely frustrating. It is best described as trying to operate one of those wooden acrobat toys, but in zero-G. Obviously played on a controller, each arm is assigned to an analogue stick, while his grippy-grippy hands are opened and closed with either trigger.

Heavenly bodies crossplay