Where did the Demo go?

[RocketSimplicity]

I've seen many threads related to this, but these are all old and concern the 0.18 version of the demo. I checked on the KSP wiki and found out that the last demo version was 1.3.1, a fairly modern version of the game. However, it appears that it is no longer available. I have checked the current KSP website as well as older versions of the website on the wayback machine, and I have seen no hints of it. I have also checked steam and there was a KSP demo on it as recent as August 2018. Where did it go? Is it still available? I'm asking for a friend who wants to try KSP. If there is even a 3rd party copy of it I would like to know about it. Thank you for your time.

[kerbiloid]

Probably the whole youtube of KSP videos up to 1.7.3 makes 0.13.1 a little bit outdated and confusing.

[Lisias]

On 10/10/2019 at 6:30 AM, RocketSimplicity said:

I've seen many threads related to this, but these are all old and concern the 0.18 version of the demo. I checked on the KSP wiki and found out that the last demo version was 1.3.1, a fairly modern version of the game. 

If you have a Steam account, you can download it following these instructions:

This one is that based on the 0.18.3:

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     /  / /  /  /  /  |_|  /   / |  |
    /  //  /   |  |___    /   /_/  /
   /     /     \___   \  /   ____ /
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/__/  |__|    \_____/ /___/

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(I'm terrible at ASCII art :P)

Thank you for downloading the Kerbal Space Program!

Version 0.18.3 DEMO

(from the readme.txt)

I'm not aware of any other place for download this thing, or any other Demo version.

 

3 hours ago, kerbiloid said:

Probably the whole youtube of KSP videos up to 1.7.3 makes 0.13.1 a little bit outdated and confusing.

Not that much, really...

 

Edited October 11, 2019 by Lisias
Typos! Good thing they're not illegal!

[RocketSimplicity]

7 hours ago, Lisias said:

If you have a Steam account, you can download it following these instructions:

It appears to no longer work, at least on the windows version. It always says

Depot download failed : missing license for depots 231411
 

It's a shame that it no longer works. It's also confusing they call it 1.0 demo when it is a 0.18 demo.

[Superfluous J]

15 minutes ago, RocketSimplicity said:

it no longer works. It's also confusing they call it 1.0 demo when it is a 0.18 demo.

Those two things may have been related.

I agree that a demo would be nice. KSP is one of those games that you can get a very poor indication of what it's about by watching videos.

[Lisias]

1 hour ago, RocketSimplicity said:

It appears to no longer work, at least on the windows version. It always says

Depot download failed : missing license for depots 231411

It's a shame that it no longer works. It's also confusing they call it 1.0 demo when it is a 0.18 demo.

Krakens, it's working for me!!

It may be because I bought KSP from Steam, and so I`m entitled to every KSP version available from them. Or perhaps because I already had downloaded it in 2018/Xmas and so I had a free license from that time.

I still can select these ones from the BETA Program:

In a way or another, it's a shame. 

— — — POST EDIT — — — 

It should be because I had "bought" it previously, from the times it was available...

 

Well… It will not hurt clicking on the link for the Steam's KSP Demo entry: 
https://help.steampowered.com/en/wizard/HelpWithGame/?appid=231410

Edited October 12, 2019 by Lisias
post edit

[RocketSimplicity]

2 hours ago, Lisias said:

It may be because I bought KSP from Steam, and so I`m entitled to every KSP version available from them.

I too bought KSP from Steam, so that doesn't appear to be the problem.

2 hours ago, Lisias said:

Well… It will not hurt clicking on the link for the Steam's KSP Demo entry: 
https://help.steampowered.com/en/wizard/HelpWithGame/?appid=231410

Sadly, it doesn't work.

3 hours ago, 5thHorseman said:

Those two things may have been related.

I agree that a demo would be nice. KSP is one of those games that you can get a very poor indication of what it's about by watching videos.

Several friends of mine spent their money on this game because they had the wrong impression. I think we really need a demo that sticks around and is in clear sight on the KSP website. They shouldn't also pull it down once a new version for the full game has been released. 

I think this is how the developers should do a demo:

Theoretical Example with 1.7+ releases

1.7: Can we develop a demo yet? No, we're working on BG DLC and 1.7.1

1.7.1 Can we develop a demo yet? Not yet as we need to quickly fix bugs with this version and the DLC

same for 1.7.2

1.7.3: Can we develop a demo yet? Yes we can, before we start over with building 1.8

1.7.3 demo is quickly made , and then 1.8 development begins.

No demo for 1.8 and 1.9, but lots of new features have been added, and so the 1.7.3 demo wouldn't give a realistic impression on what the game was like now, so

1.10: Can we make a new demo? Not yet as we need to fix bugs

Hotfixes come, and then when the devs think 1.10 is complete, they make the demo.

[FinalFan]

11 hours ago, RocketSimplicity said:

I too bought KSP from Steam, so that doesn't appear to be the problem.

Sadly, it doesn't work.

Several friends of mine spent their money on this game because they had the wrong impression. I think we really need a demo that sticks around and is in clear sight on the KSP website. They shouldn't also pull it down once a new version for the full game has been released. 

I think this is how the developers should do a demo:

Theoretical Example with 1.7+ releases

1.7: Can we develop a demo yet? No, we're working on BG DLC and 1.7.1

1.7.1 Can we develop a demo yet? Not yet as we need to quickly fix bugs with this version and the DLC

same for 1.7.2

1.7.3: Can we develop a demo yet? Yes we can, before we start over with building 1.8

1.7.3 demo is quickly made , and then 1.8 development begins.

No demo for 1.8 and 1.9, but lots of new features have been added, and so the 1.7.3 demo wouldn't give a realistic impression on what the game was like now, so

1.10: Can we make a new demo? Not yet as we need to fix bugs

Hotfixes come, and then when the devs think 1.10 is complete, they make the demo.

It's very unfortunate that the demo can no longer be obtained through ordinary channels.  However, it can still be found online without too much trouble.  For instance, if you put download ksp demo into Google, you'll get a bunch of results, primarily from people on this forum asking how to download the demo (lol), then the KSP website, steam, etc.  Ignore these.  Further down the list you find some third party downloads, and these are still functional.  Just pick one that's not too disreputable.  For example, I've never had a problem with softonic's files, but it's a bit of a chore to navigate through all the false links (that take you to ads instead) to get to those files. 

I tried the demo from softonic; it worked fine, and my computer hasn't caught fire yet. 

Edited October 12, 2019 by FinalFan
I thought I was wrong, but I was wrong