Gravity sucks. Like that annoying kid on the playground who likes to trip you because he thought it would be funny, gravity is always there waiting for its time to strike. A silent guardian of physics, gravity is the cause of every dropped biscuit wasted, every painful trip you’ve taken, and every pen that’s escaped your grasp.  I hate you, gravity.

0RBITALIS is all about gravity, or perhaps more accurately it’s about figuring out how to exploit the forces of gravity to get a small red ball to stay in orbit for as long as possible. If you’ve ever played Angry Birds: Space, you will already have a good idea how the controls work.

Each level presents itself as its own unique puzzle, with large red stars and smaller white asteroids liberally dotted around in their own orbits. Changing the angle and force of your shot can yield wildly different results, and by using the gravitational pull of each celestial body you’re able to pull off some crazy ‘skill-shots’ that leave your projectile soaring through the stars for what seems like a lifetime.

Of course, getting a trajectory that lasts longer than a few seconds isn’t always easy. If you apply too much force on your shot, you’ll end up flying straight off the map and into a world of failure. Shoot too softly, and you’ll be sucked straight towards the closest object. It’s all about finding that sweet spot for each level.

There’s little to dislike about 0RBITALIS. It scratches an itch for physics puzzling without overcomplicating things. The levels are varied enough to keep you occupied for a good while and the leaderboards can help create healthy competition between you and your friends. The game is essentially feature complete despite launching as an Early Access title, and if you’re in the market for a new puzzle game you can’t go wrong with shooting things into space for fun.

0RBITALIS launched on the 16^TH across Steam Greenlight as an Early Access title.

© 2014, The Indie Mine. All rights reserved.

Ever wonder if there is other life out there in the cosmos? Perhaps some civilizations are exploring the vast reaches of space, or even at war with one another. What if, during such a war, an errant shot from a planet’s defences missed its target and hurled itself out into space? Perhaps that very shot is coming into our own solar system, hurtling towards Earth, with us unaware of our impending danger. At least, that is what I was thinking when I made a huge miscalculation while playing the pre-alpha build of Interplanetary by Finnish based studio Team Jolly Roger Games.

Bombardment!!

Interplanetary is a hard science fiction, turn-based strategy game where you use artillery weapons from your own planet in order to blow up a rival planet. If you have ever played Tanks or Scorched Earth back in the day, it is very much like that, but on a much larger and complex scale. In this game, you must first build up your forces before you are able to begin chucking warheads across the solar system. There is strategy involved as you must manage a multitude of things such as building material, power, planet defences, planet armaments, and of course, your population. Your “life” comes in the form of cities; you must protect them at all costs while at the same time attempting to bombard your opponent’s cities into a smouldering crater. Do that, and you win. Simple right? Nope!

While attempting to destroy that one pesky planet, you must account for things such as planetary orbit, gravity wells, travel time, and other planets and planetoids as well as their respective orbits and gravity. While you do get a guide showing you how your shot will travel, it only takes into account the current state of the system. You must predict how your aim will be affected by other planets and the gravity of the local sun in order to get a shot to land perfectly. Science! Ballistics! Math! …My head hurts.

With skills you can make curved shots around the sun.

The pre-alpha version only comes with multiplayer at the moment, and AI opponents are not integrated yet to my knowledge, but it is planned for a future release. I loaded up the hot seat multiplayer and began playing a solo game. Although LAN and online support is there, I have yet to try them out.

Build up your planet.

Playing both planets did little to stifle my “strategy” since fired rounds may behave in unpredictable ways due to planetary influences. So due to this, playing both sides on a solo game still made things a little challenging. Before I knew it, hours had flown by, and I was still in the midst of a great war, firing shells, missiles, and even laser beams. This reminded me a lot of Scorched Earth where my aim, or lack thereof, can make games last quite a long time.

I am extremely impressed with this, considering it is only a pre-alpha build; it has quite a lot of gameplay and core mechanics already down pat. It is already a strong build in its current state – more than enough to convince any fans of artillery-type games or science fiction buffs. Team Jolly Roger have many plans for the future of Interplanetary, and I for one am looking forward to future builds and releases. Definitely keep an eye on this title in the future, and one in the sky for one of my off-the-mark artillery shots.

I may not be able to hit the planet next to me, but I guarantee the neighbouring solar systems have fear in their hearts whenever they hear my name.

Check out the Interplanetary website
Team Jolly Roger’s Website

© 2014, The Indie Mine. All rights reserved.