Last December I took part in the 28th Ludum Dare. I tried to get the most out of its theme (the incredibly vague “You Only Get One“) and the result was 0RBITALIS. A minimalistic gravity simulator with a puzzle flavour. The game was both the most voted and commented entry in the contest and in the end… … …it didn’t win! I do not deny that I have been quite disappointed, initially. But after reading all the positive comments from the Ludum Dare community, I decided to keep working on the game. One hundred days after, 0RBITALIS has been released on Steam. How did I do that? Weeell…

December

• 15th-16th: 0RBITALIS is born!
• 16th: available on Newgrounds

January

• 7th: available on itch.io
• 13rd: available on IndieGameStand
• 27th: first contact with Mastertronic
• 30th: nominated for the Newgrounds Award 2013

March

• 12th: showcased at BAFTA Inside Games Arcade
• 17th-21st: showcased at GDC 2014 in the ALT.CTRL.GDC section
• 28th-30th: showcased at EGX Rezzed in the Leaft Field Collection
• 27th March: Doseone joins the project

April

• 16th: released on Steam Early Access

I want to see this not as an happy ending, but rather as an happy beginning for 0RBITALIS. I am looking forward to see how feedback from its community will shape it for the final release. And if there is a message behind my story, is surely not to give up. There are thousands of people out there who love your game: they just don’t know it yet…

Here it is my post mortem about 0RBITALIS. For this game I got inspiration looking at other themes in the final round. It’s hard to make a game that is as vague as “You Only Get One”, but when you couple it with “Gravity” and “Chaos” it’s much clearer what you can actually do. I have always been interested in games which explore how simple rules (such as Netwon’s laws) can generate beautifully complex behaviours.

Most of the “features” of the game are actually consequences of the strong time constraints Ludum Dare imposed me. For instance, mi initial idea was to have a moving camera that could zoom in and out, but I didn’t have time to code it properly. And this automatically lead to a “stay in the system” mechanic. The vector fields that you can see in the background was a debug tool I used to test and calibrate planets’ masses, but when I realised that it was fitting nicely with the style, I decided to leave it there. 

Since the very beginning of the voting period, 0RBITALIS got a lot of attention: so far, it’s both the most voted and commented entry in the 48 hours competition. I think part of its success is due to its aesthetic: it’s simple, yet effective. I spent lot of time polishing the game rather then designing more levels. This can really do the difference, especially when games are picked almost exclusively by how appealing their screenshots look like. 0RBITALIS has doing unexpectedly well. For this reason I am already working on a full-game version that will include both more levels and new mechanics. There will be probing missions, for instance, which require to scan a celestial body for a certain time. I am already working on landing missions as well, but I’d rather keep them mysterious for now!

Since I *hate* menus, 0RBITALIS won’t have one. I am working on a different system, however, that looks like a star chart. Player will be able to select levels and to change settings just touching and connecting stars. I also collected lot of statistics about levels but… I’ll keep them for another post!

If you liked the game, you’re more then welcomed to vote it or leave a comment on its LD48 entry page. If you want to follow 0RBITALIS news and further development, you can find me on Twitter as @AlanZucconi.