Orbit Jam

Nice game! It's short but complete. And it will be really cool if we can see the trace of all satellites!

i dont know why this is so addicting but it be

Pretty interesting concept and I had good fun playing it. I just wish there was more feedback when boosting them out the earth, sometimes I don't know if I didn't click right or it's not doing anything. Also, I like that you implemented the theme, but I'd rather have that time to launch the next satellite change based on other stuff. All in all, it's a really good entry. Good job!

I think if you added a mechanic to change how fast the satellite is launched from the cannon and limit how far away you can click the satellite (I can click them till they are off the screen) it would be a bit more balanced. The cannon reminds me of that bouncing cat launching out of a cannon game.

I loved how the broken satellites would crash onto earth! Really nice and unique game, I enjoyed it pretty much, it couldn't control the canon very good, but as it takes place onto space, probably it was intentional. I loved the simple graphics, and the whole implementation of the theme was really good, well done!

Took a moment to realize how this game actually works. Seems like there's no real input from you at first until you figure it out and it clicks. Also, the mouse tracking feels a bit weird.

Simple, a little addictive... lacks something in the gameplay but I do not know what...

Nice entry! The gameplay is neat and fun.

I have been making so many satellites to crash and I must be on NASA's blacklist for covering the earth with space junks XD

@moebiusmeow Thanks! I'm glad you enjoyed it. :P

There's a nice simplicity here. I paid for my mistake of trying to get satellites going in two different directions!

I haven't seen a Java game in a while, but I used to build a lot of games in Java. Is your source code available? I looked at that ZIP file but it looks like jre stuff.

EDIT: Oh! This is a jam game, not a compo game. That explains the lack of source. I'd still be curious to hear about your toolchain if you want to talk about it.

Pretty simple, but fun gravity mechanics. I’d love to see multiple planets!

Started destroying all the satelites I could, before reading I had to do the opposite. Pretty fun!

Nice game!

I like the concept, that actually hooked me some time trying to figure out how to predict satellite's orbits (which I couldn't). Could be helpful a visual help in that aspect (some kind of trajectory indicator maybe?).

It also has a nice music! I downloaded the EXE version just to be able to listen it!

@pvg I'm glad you enjoyed it!
We used libGDX as our game development framework, with gradle as the build management tool (standard for libGDX).
The assets were created as vector graphics in Inkscape by my partner in Inkscape, and the music and sound effects were created by him as well.

The game uses Box2D physics engine at the core, by defining Earth as a centered Staticbody and each satellite as a Dynamicbody. Our game then manually computes the gravitational pull vector and applies to each satellite at each time step to simulate the gravitational pull in an orbit.

The most time consuming part was modifying the initial impulse when launching the satellites, as well as an initial 1 second thrust applied to them, based on the launch angle, such that most launch angles place the satellites in an orbit, as the game would otherwise be way too difficult.

Another state-discurbing game by adding more elements every 10 seconds, and I am enjoying it! The concept is also nice here, and love the music lol. Congrats!

Hmm, after I shot a few satellites, they either crash into earth, or go very far away beyond where I can see. Is this a bug? Or am I misplaying the game somehow? It looks like a cool concept.

The atmosphere of the game is really great, the graphics were simple but clear and with the repeating tones in the music it all came together to be something really relaxing.

Gameplay wise... I wasn't clever enough to understand. I just set an angle and watched as all of my satellites nicely spun around, and the happiness bar went up to where the curve at the top starts and then just, stayed.

I don't know what I was doing wrong cause I was getting more satellites and they weren't really crashing into each other... but also I wasn't doing anything either?

That being said, orbital mechanics!?!?!? That was so cool to see in a game jam!
Thank you. :D

cool idea, the music stopped after a few seconds idk if that was intentional to allow the player to focus on the task at hand, or to allow the player to absorb the enormity of space and quell in its serene beauty. Nice game!

@ubershmekel Thanks for trying out our game! It is intential that satellites eventually crash into the earth. Some launch angles don't provide the right trajectory. We wanted most launch angles (all if possible) to place the satellites in some orbit, making it very difficult to properly balance initial impulse and further thrust, which is why they end up towards the bottom of the screen when launched at app. 45 degrees.

I didn't really get it all the satellites just flow off the screen.

Art was pretty though!

Great use of the theme, I love the political rating similey face and it was a beautiful to see all those satellites crash in a big cascade!

Interesting concept and the art is simple but pretty. It's quite fun to play.

It seems almost impossible to predict the orbits, feels like having the canon in the same position does not launch satellites the same way (maybe it's me though). But it would have been nice to see the path of the satellite before launching it I think.

And sadly the music stopped after a few seconds, but it seemed pretty nice.

@venfola Thanks for trying out our game!

Yes, the cannon has a slight random offset when launching, making it difficult to launch two satellites in exactly the same orbit.

The music unfortunately stops working after a few moments in the html5 version, which is a bug, but it works correctly in the desktop version.

It's an interesting way to play. It's very attractive to set up tracks, but most of the time they will crash or never return:smile:. But in general, it's a good game~

Awesome game! The physics were very satisfying and it didn't take very long to get used to them. The premise is great and while being chaotic managed to still be strategic and thoughtful!

Interesting concepts, controlling tracks and speed make the operation very challenging, it seems simple but it is not

This was a fun little game! The collisions had satifying feedback and I chuckled each time.I would have liked if there had been some kind of audio or visual indication that I was boosting up the satilite as I was not sure if I was boosting them at all at first!

Took a second to get the hang of putting satellites into stable orbits, but once I got it I started doing really well. That is, until one satellite bumped into another and started a sort of lethal cascade into full-blown Kessler Syndrome. A fun little distraction.

Is the web version working correctly? For me the satellites just keep falling off the screen after launch. I can't seem to put them in any kind of orbit no matter where I aim.

@juutis It seems that the physics engine is slightly miscomputating in the web version. Try the jar or .exe, everything works correctly there!

poeple in this game are like : "14 crashed satellites on earth? no problem we can live with that. 15 crashed satellites on earth? ok now too much is too much :angry: "

the gameplay was kinda minimalistic but i like gravity oriented games. interesting entry!

Good idea for the Jam - unfortunately it's very easy to cheese just by holding the cannon at the minimum elevation, it's enough to keep "max happiness" (based on the web version). It's worth noting that 2D orbital calculations are very finicky, so implementing this game was harder than it looks. Otherwise, had a bit of fun, thanks!