launched a new DarkSpace website in May 2001. After a new back-end infrastructure for the game was written and released (GameCQ), a new public beta test began. Partnership with Playnet The DarkSpace public beta test ran during the summer and fall of 2001. According to Palestar, DarkSpace reached 10,000 registered players in September and 20,000 registered players in November. Since the game was free and reasonably fun, a large number of people drifted through, many of them sticking around throughout the test. Development proceeded at a decent pace, as features were added, bugs fixed, and changes made. Eventually, however, the money provided when Ubisoft canceled the publishing contract would run out, so the game needed to develop a revenue model. In December 2001 Palestar teamed up with Playnet.com to host the game, and DarkSpace moved to a pay to play model, charging $9.99 per calendar month for unlimited access. Players could still access a tutorial and demo mode for free. Retail Publication In July 2002 Palestar signed an agreement with Got Game Entertainment to distribute DarkSpace in retail stores. DarkSpace hit store shelves in December that year. Source code release In June 2009 Palestar released the source code for the DarkSpace game engine, named Medusa. The engine is available under three different licenses. Several days after release the DarkSpace game servers were overwhelmed by downloads and the engine source code had to be temporarily taken down. The source code is currently hosted on GitHub. Present day Since release and the transition from pay-for-play, DarkSpace has had several patches and changes. While the game has always been "under development", the pace of updates has varied. At times changes will be fairly frequent; at others long delays have been known. Palestar's small size (a single part-time programmer since 2002, two from 2008 onwards means that speedy changes are not always possible, or wanted. Despite these problems DarkSpace continues to develop. Due to limitations mentioned above, volunteer assistance has generally been welcomed in many forms and many of the moderators, game developers, and administrators of the game, forums, and chat rooms are unpaid volunteers. Darkspace became free-to-play on March 12, 2010 with no restrictions. Players can purchase credits via the online store, or receive a monthly income of credits plus other benefits by subscribing. Reception After its release DarkSpace received several positive reviews. Michael Lafferty of GameZone called DarkSpace "a game that looks