Orbital remake

This is a remake of a game existing on the App Store.
If you don’t know the original game, you really should search it on the store! That’s one of my favorites!
This was just a test at the beginning, but finally it became more interesting than I thought.

http://jmv38.comze.com/CODEAbis/server.php#orbital

Other link :
https://github.com/Spirikoi/Codea


I like your new dynamics better than mine. And the trail is nice. Good job!

@Codeslinger : I’m happy to know that it inspired you! But I don’t know what loveCodea is. I will check it as soon as possible.

@Jmv38 : I tried what you proposed and it made me want to improve the game.
In fact I don’t know what is better, a lot of gravity or not.
I improve a bit the code (I created a repo on Github).

https://github.com/Spirikoi/Codea

Let me know what you think about this new version. And there is a little surprise!

Thanks for sharing. It seems an interesting and well polished game. What is the logic for the circle size? Random? It is strange that there is a small error on line 218…?? Init the linearVelocity to vec2(0,0) and its ok.

The circle will spread until it touch an other circle or a border.
The code calculate the radius before it starts to grow, but it give the feel it acts like this.
And I didn’t mentioned it but there is a bit of gravity between circles and the ball/rocket.
You certainly saw it.

I can’t check the code for the moment, I will do it later.

Great wee game! Nicely implemented

Thanks for the details @Spirikoi. I have copied your code in my web repo so people can find it easily later. Here is the link: http://jmv38.comze.com/CODEAbis/server.php#orbital . If you don’t allow me to do that, just say it and i’ll remove the data.

@Jmv38
That’s ok for your repo. I just looked at the code, and the line you’ve seen as a mistake is in fact completely useless because the balls are static and the linear velocity is not used… I removed it in the first post, you can update it on your repo if you want.

Edit : I just watched the video you uploaded, is it slow on your iPad or is it the video that slows down the game? I have an iPad 4, can explain this if you have an older one.

The video is only 30Hz because recording slows down the game. And i have ipad1, but the speed is ok when i play.

Ok, I was just wondering if there was different performances depending on the model of the iPad.

@Spirikoi that game is really interesting. I’ve played 50 to 100 games, i still can’t master to get always a good score. Actually, i often get 0… Do you have a strategy to get a high score? What is your typical score?

@Jmv38 my typical score is almost 70-80. But don’t worry, I often get 0 too. My strategy is to build a kind of wall in the middle and then always send the ball behind the wall so they can’t come back to the death line. But sometimes, a ball fill the last hole in the wall and you lose…
If you find something better, I would be interested.

Hi Spirikoi!

Orbital inspired me to improve the physics api of loveCodea, so I took your code (from Jmv38’s server) and added it as a demo. I just assumed that it’s in your interest.

http://github.com/effelsberg/loveCodea

Hi @Spirikoi i have tried orbital lite on the appstore. Actually i prefer your version! But for one thing i prefer the original: the gravity is generating too strong bounces, this limits the possibilities. I have replaced line 252 by:

--            local vit = math.sqrt(vel:dot(vel))/2000
            local vit = math.sqrt(math.sqrt(vel:dot(vel)))/20

then the gravity is stronger, but less bouncy. Try it and let me know what you think.

Thank you @Jvm38. If you have ideas to improve the game (like the trail), let me know.
I have rearranged the code a bit on this version, so it should be easier to improve. I removed useless lines, don’t know why they’re here…

I’m thinking of a mode where you can play with multiples rockets at a time, but it’s really buggy…

I would like to ask you something. I called my objects (rocket, ball, explosion, glitter) as I feel it should be, but I’m French (maybe you noticed it in my posts), so I could be using wrong names for them. So if you think a name is not appropriate, let me know :wink:

You can continue to use your repo for orbital I put the link in the main post

I knew you were french from inspecting your code (qui d’autre appellerait une vitesse ‘vit’ dans un programme, à part un français? :wink: ). So my english might not be much better than yours, but if i see some better name i’ll let you know! :-)) :-)) :-))

Alors là je ne m’attendais pas à ça :slight_smile: (je vais vite faire disparaitre cet indice !) Mais pour la compréhension comune, je pense qu’il vaut mieux continuer en anglais!

I’m still improving the gravity dynamics and the multirocket works but still with some glitch…
And now the balls colors will never be too dark. (Sometimes the balls were almost invisible…)

I’ll post the new version this night.

Il ne nous reste plus qu’à planter un drapeau et coloniser ce forum !

. @Spirikoi very clean looking, nice job ! This game is a lot of fun !

Updated on github.

I changed a bit the gravity strength. It’s stronger but the ball’s velocity is not too much affected. Tell me if you don’t like it.

It’s possible to launch more than 1 rocket at a time (by changing a value in the setup function) but the score will be meaningless and the physics loose stability…

@Xavier ^^ Oui il faudrait essayer !