Orbital Mechanics Game( concept)
Community Forums/Showcase/Orbital Mechanics Game( concept)
| ||
Here a game concept that I've been working on and off. The idea is to control the shape of the orbit of a planet to match that of a ring of circles. And the only way to control orbit is to adjust the speed of the planet. Watch the Howto Video Below are links to download the PC and Mac versions. PC version Mac version SPACE = Start/Restart game E = Speed up planet W = Slow down planet Some find this hard to play. I'd like to get your opinion on how this concept can be extended into a full game. |
| ||
| Very good idea! Got as far as round 11 before I flew into the sun. When you've finished a round and you're moving in a nice circle, it's quite easy to just decelerate or accelerate continously to get into the next orbit. To make it really really hard, you could have a moon orbiting the planet, whose speed can also be controlled. That way, it would have to sketch out a spirograph-type path. I like this game a lot. |
| ||
| Really nice! I like the concept...it's already kinda fun. Certainly needs some stuff to happen. I like the idea of objects influencing the gravity. Could be fun to spoil an alien attack at the sun, too! ;D Again, great stuff! Rock on! |
| ||
| Though I love the idea, it was quite difficult, for me at least.. I really had to try hard getting behind the logic of the planets trajectory.. oh well :/ I could imagine this game would be an awesome task for an Neuronet AI.. (little degree of freedom, easy parametrization of success (number of points touched)).. so.. get in touch with NTG! That would be some awesome feature! (Combatting an AI about who finishes the orbit first!) |
| ||
| How about to use mouse offset to adjust planet acceleration? I think it can make the controlling more predictable and smooth. |
| ||
| Thanks everyone for the feedback. Keep them coming. It's interesting that some find it easy while others find it hard. It might have to with the way gravitation works. The fact that you have to adjust the speed on one side but the effects are seen on the other side. Anyway, based on what I'm hearing from this and other forums , I might have to implement an "AI" assisted mode. But I'm afraid it might make the game too easy. I original had the Orbits Remaining start of at 20 instead of 1000 but no one that tried it was able to pass round 1. With only 20 orbits to start with, the ideas was if you completed a round in 5 orbits or less you would gain extra orbit on the next round. If you did it in more than 5, then you would lose some in the next round. When the orbits got to zero, then the planet blew up. I was thinking maybe power-ups can be collected somehow and be used to do something cool to extend your orbits or give you more control or something. Any ideas. I was also thinking that maybe on the round 20 or higher, you would only see the little white circles when you your planet goes over them, but most people aren't even making it to round 10. Maybe add an asteroid belt somewhere. But how would that work? Just brainstorming out loud. P.S. when changing your orbit, try not to speed up or slow down for more than a quarter orbit at a time. This way will make it easier to control the shape of your orbit. |
| ||
| The fact that you have to adjust the speed on one side but the effects are seen on the other side. HAHAHA, you know what? I just gave it another try sticking to that principle, and immidiately made it to lvl 40 (which was when I got dizzy ;), isnt that hilarious?! EDIT: It should be noted, that I never even made it past lvl 1 before :}}} |
| ||
| Ideas: - The Planet looses mass on acceleration, and gains mass on decceleration and constant velocity, whereas the mass of the planet has effect on its trajectory. PLUS this would make Orbit management more tough, hence you may have to spend some orbits to regain mass... - Collectable Buff powerup, that enables you to see a PREDICTION of the planets trajectory... - ...[aliens attacking, sattelites like a moon, OTHER PLANETS to avoid..#INF] - in later levels, the sun starts to [slowly] pulse, so you dont have an in finite amount of time to spend on orbits near the sun, but you can escape the growing sun if necessary and retry as the sun starts shrinking again etc. - multiple suns-> more difficult orbits, like:  |
| ||
| What about asteroids |
| ||
| @BeAnAge That's cool that it got easier for you. Maybe I just got to explain it to people better next time. Anything with more than 1 major source of gravity, and the orbits easily because unstable, making it very difficult to navigate using speed alone. You'd have to have a way to direct the "thrust" in a direction. Sun pulsing sound like a cool idea. I can imaging the sun turning into a small red giant as it starts to get bigger and pulsate. I can also see doing something with pulsar. @EdzUp[SD] Good idea, but what do you have in mind? This is good, I have some ideas that I can work on in the next few days. |
   |