This is so beautiful. Thanks.

I really like the music and the mood. I feel like I'm playing kerbal space program, figuring out orbits again. It felt like the trajectories were only able to show accurately for maybe 90 degrees. It would have been nice if we could see the full orbit path when we were setting the trajectory. I'm glad to see the "Objectives" mode set for the future, and would love to see a puzzle-like game made with this.

@testuser Thank you for playing! It was definitely a rough calculation for the trajectory. It's on my list of things to improve with the next iteration!

Fun little sim! Interested to see what the objective game mode would look like. Fun to try to make planets collide :)

This is a neat little toy, and it creates some beautiful soundscapes. It wasn't clear to me whether anything effects it besides the number of planets though, as it always just seems to settle into the same song once I get enough going around.

Fun little thing, very soothing. The orbit calculations were indeed a bit off, and it would have been cool to see an actual game with those mechanics, but a nice package overall ^^

Nice one! I really wish the planets would affect each other too ^^

Favourite one thus far. Good work!!

Very nice aesthetics! I've seen a few of these in the jam but the integration of the sounds creating beautiful music is very cool and original. Good work!

Just wanna share my perfect "stuck in a loop" moment with this fried egg that I created. Beautiful moment.

Very cool game, good atmosphere, cool music

Nice game completely in the theme :)

Really enjoyed toying with this little sandbox. Really mesmerising to watch and listen to although I probably had too much fun shooting planets into each other from long range

Very relaxing. Great job.

Very simple but beautiful!

This is a beautiful and relaxing experience. It would be great, if there were more different music layers and if they would react on different parameters like planet size, distance from sun, etc.
It's an amazing game idea. You should definitely keep working on that. I would love to help with the audio part, if you want to collaborate.

That's very beautiful. Very relaxing, I loved the music. Keep it up with the other modes.

That's really.. uhm. I... I want to see the night sky now.

@johnbrynte nice one!!

@darkmax14 you should try peppering the sun with a ton of planets >:)

@twohands that would be a three (or more) body problem, which is a lot more challenging to simulate than a simple two-body problem :) But I admit I tried it before quickly abandoning it, because the physics did not work out so well XD

Nice, simple and relaxing orbital mechanic game with great music. Spamming a ton of planets and watching them go was fun.

Relaxing game!

@flying-dog-fish

I totally agree. Almost like watching fireworks go off when they all hit the sun.

Doing so makes me think of how systems actually form: a lot of objects that are in opposition and collide, until finally all the chaos relaxes and what remains are the compatible, stable satellites.

The things I like most about this are the concept and the mood you managed to create.

The translation of a concept into a game mechanic like this is something I do enjoy seeing quite a lot. The mood you invoke with the droning, yet soothing soundscapes amplifies the idea's grandiose nature. And who doesn't enjoy orbital physics?

I do think it'd be more interesting if the bodies were gravitationally affected by one another, and not jut the central star, as that'd allow for more interesting patterns, however I do see how that'd make creating stable orbits even more difficult.

My only real gameplay issue was that the prediction line for a new orbit would become way too inaccurate way too quickly(relative to its length), however I see that's already been fixed in the post-jam release.

I agree with @merlinnsound's remarks and ideas regarding additional interactivity, and I'm hoping to see this being expanded upon in the future.

*Stellar* job overall.

Oh! I really loved to mood of this one, makes me want to see more of it! I appreciate the sound design, it feels so dreamy yet nostalgic in a way. There's a lot of potential graphic and controls wise so I'll follow your progress carefully, since there are new modes coming soon :D

Congrats!

@arbe Thank you for the great feedback! It's a shame I didn't realize how easy the trajectory prediction fix would be during the jam, but I just needed to increase the resolution of the path (I'm using an iterative numerical solution). It really enables more precise creation, so like I said, it's a shame I didn't get it in!

10/10 would smash orbital bodies together again. Looking forward to the objective mode!

Yeeeessssss, updated game page!

[Thanks for joinin' us on stream last night, it was great to have ya!](https://www.twitch.tv/videos/773852287?t=00h30m48s) :slight_smile:

I think I've said pretty much everything I wanted to say about this one last night, but just wanted to reiterate that I loved this entry. I think this face pretty much says it all:


Keep on keepin' on man! I'd love to see how this progresses. :slight_smile:

Haha @coleslaughter awesome screengrab. Thanks again for playing! I'm still floored that we had such similar ideas. See you around for sure!

That was really nice :) Good game to just calm down a bit. The samples were really nice had this ethereal atmosphere to them. I enjoyed that very much. I'm also a huge fan of space/orbit games so you really hit a weak spot of mine here. There wasn't much to do though and it seemed that the samples are very limited in numbers so just launching planet after planet didn't do anything after you already had three of four in orbit. But that's of course something that can be improved further down the line.
I had some issues with the projected orbit though. It seemed to be quite off, to a point that it was utterly useless to determine whether the planet would orbit or just crash into the sun. I went by the try and error approach by just launching a shit ton of planets and hoping that some of them would survive the ordeal :D That was fun in it's own right.

Really nice job!

@duke I'm glad you were able to enjoy the aesthetics, despite the technical issues that I couldn't get fixed for the jam. I'm happy with the meditative mood it reached. If you are interested, you can check out my post-jam version that has definitely improved the orbit projection :) I'm excited to keep working on this, and I have some cool plans for the music (hoping to make that more of a creative element, as you suggest). Thanks again for the feedback!

This was a great experience! And lovely music!! Maybe tracks should fadeout on removal? I'm genuinely intrigued about how you can extend this concept. Great Entry!

aaah, I appreciate the relaxing atmosphere you create yourself while playing this game!

Would have loved to see how the objectives mode looks like and am glad to read you'll continue working on it! Keep it up (or in orbit, rather :D)!

Wow, this game is out of this world! Puns aside, I really enjoyed the aesthetics and it was very relaxing to play around. I'm looking forward to the objectives mode!

@rodobodolfo What a great idea!

COMMUNITY UPDATE! - I am posting a blog as well, but I wanted to make sure that those of you who specifically expressed interest in features had the opportunity to see them :) Follow the link on the game page to universalis-update.

OBJECTIVE MODE
I have added a taste of what objective mode will look like for Universalis. I have a lot of ideas to implement beyond this, but I would be beyond ecstatic to hear what you think so far!
@testuser @abdul-zakkar @arbe @bottini @savvy-community @thebooksnail @coleslaughter @duke @rodobodolfo @trexxak @wdsrocha

SANDBOX MODE
I was planning to include a sort of "sandbox" from the start, and some of your ideas have influenced the features now available! Not only can you toy with the gravity and launch settings, but you can enable planet gravity AND play with multi-star systems. In the future, I would like to add more flexibility on the placement of stars, so stay tuned!
@twohands @arbe

Thank you again to everyone who played and rated my entry. Ludum Dare was a whole lot of fun, and I'm excited to be part of this community now.

Best,
Hawkin

@merlinnsound Let me know how we can get in touch!

NICE! Will definitely have a look and come back here later! Thanks so much for notifying me!