10 Seconds of Thrust

Overall★★★★★★★★★★2.68
Fun★★★★★★★★★★2.74
Innovation★★★★★★★★★★3.21
Theme★★★★★★★★★★3.11
Graphics★★★★★★★★★★1.50
Mood★★★★★★★★★★2.33
Coolness★★★★★★★★★★32%
A simple game in which you must get a spacecraft to the moon and back with 10 seconds of thrust. See how efficient you can be!

Here's a video showing how to do it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7GLWTiEUxWY

It might be a little hard to see exactly when I'm clicking, but we wouldn't want to make it too easy now, would we? Rocket science is meant to be hard.

Also see this wikipedia page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hohmann_transfer_orbit

And finally some general hints:

- Don't try to travel in a straight line to the moon, think with orbits.
- fire forwards and tangent to your orbit to travel further out, backwards to go further in.
- when approaching the moon, try to match its speed.

screenshot

Comments14

yetatore
yetatore27 Aug 2013, 08:16
A game dont need to be complex for being fun! Good work, and happy Ludum Dare.
oajfh27 Aug 2013, 08:22
Hmm... The game is really hard, haven't been able to complete it yet.
It's a shame it isn't slightly more zoomed in.
You must have spent quite a fair bit of time on the physics, impressive, anyway.
GSM Productions27 Aug 2013, 08:55
Nice use of the theme, and very cool minimalistic idea. I do agree that it is very hard though, and I have not been able to get very far from Earth yet. Maybe a video or some tips could help making the game more approachable for clumsy guys like myself? Good job in any case!
Twistedsnail
Twistedsnail27 Aug 2013, 09:06
This is actually the best I've played so far, out of like, 50.
Its just so fun.
Kramin42
Kramin42author27 Aug 2013, 10:48
Ok, I've added a video.

Thanks for the comments :) I know it's hard, but there wasn't really any way to make it easier (at least without sacrificing realism).

I wanted to make this game to scale but low earth orbit would have been only 0.6 of a pixel above the earth and the earth and moon would have been a third of the size they are, so you're lucky I made them bigger at all! :P
GNecro127 Aug 2013, 15:41
Really good game i love it but graphics and sound would be nice :D overall great :D :D
devi ever28 Aug 2013, 05:50
Interesting idea, but the unforgiving nature of the gameplay really kills the fun. Would be a lot more interesting if it was a little bit more forgiving, was a little slower, and you could actually see the distance you were traveling away from the earth right off the bat. It's hard to tell how to gauge distance and velocity at first.
Supercannon
Supercannon28 Aug 2013, 22:49
Good application of the theme, the speed of the game makes for a challenge.
Latcarf28 Aug 2013, 22:53
That's quite hard but very interesting (I haven't finished it, but I will try again)
Gazok
Gazok2 Sep 2013, 17:44
Reaallly hard to control, not how I would have done it at all. But once you get used to it it's as fun as orbiting always is.
Kramin42
Kramin42author4 Sep 2013, 22:21
Ok, I've put a download there now. The reason you can't run the jar directly is because it is an applet.
Jupiter_Hadley
Jupiter_Hadley13 Sep 2013, 20:18
I found this game really difficult, but I liked it! I could not record it however for my LD27 compilation video...
Found a bug?
Tell us on Discord