Orbital Ex

Project ID Card:

Orbital Ex is a 2D delivery game, where the player brings parcels from planet to planet, navigating between asteroids and moons and managing the momentum of flying through space to make sure they arrive to their destination intact. The better the state of the package upon arrival, the higher the score. However, too much damage will break the package... If the player breaks three, their clients will lose trust and the game will be over.

Made for the 2D Game Jam 2024, the theme for this game was "Momentum". As such, I decided to explore a type of character controller I was not very familiar with : inertia based. This, in addition to an increased attention to visuals and UI design, made this simple game mechanics-wise into quite the challenge in terms of time and ressource management.

Gameplay Elements

Spaceship: moves around space using thrust and rotating on itself;

Obstacles: objects moving through space that may collide with the ship and mess with its course;

Speed Calculation: the momentum and mass of objects define their energy, how far they push other things, how much damage they inflict;

Unique Planets: each planet in the system is named, given a short description and a unique visual style, as well as its own size and gravity strength;

Packages: chosen from a list, they each have a set of name, icon, durability, rarity, and score worth unique to them;

Captures from the game

Inertia-based Movements

As a main mechanic of the game, handling the way the ship behaved in space was critical to the gameplay of Orbital Ex. Evolving through space, selling the "zero-G" environment with inertia and gravity was necessary, however fully leaning into it would make for very difficult controls to master. Therefore, a few key choices were made to ensure a compromise between game feel and realism of movements.

Example of the ship moving through empty space

In terms of controls, the player can only add thrust forward and backwards, adding or subtracting to the overall acceleration of the ship. They may also nullify the thrust to simply cruise without accelerating.

In initial tests, turning was also based on inertia, by adding rotational speed in one direction or the other. This proved to be clumsy and hard to control, turning controlling the ship into a negative experience. To fix this, turning was switched to a simpler "hold to turn" method.

Additionnally, external forces are big part of the game (with collisions throwing the ship of course). Therefore, the controls had to be adjusted to dampen the effect of external forces rather than ignore them, allowing the player to feel their impact while still being able to correct their course if needed.

Ship parts

Planets

In the planet system of Orbital Ex, there are twelve different planets that the player can visit and bring packages to and from. Each has its name and description, based mainly on myths and pop-culture, as well as its own appearance, colors, atmosphere, size, and even moons with unique orbits.

Visuals of three of the planets

While the moons and asteroids are mobile, the planets remain fixed in space apart from its clouds. With their unique decorations on their surface, color scheme, and name on display, the player can become familiar with each one, and learn to situate each one by memory instead of just relying on the direction indicator.

Gravity pull on the ship

Once the player ship enters the atmosphere of a planet, it will get pulled by the gravity of the planet towards its center. This allows the ship to land and stick to the surface. This also means the player much learn to master taking off and landing smoothly without damaging the packages they carry. To do so, they must balance the thrust to counter the planet's gravity without pushing too hard in the opposite direction, or not hard enough and crashing down. Only once they are upright and stopped on the surface can they trade deliveries.

Deliveries

When safely landed, motionless and upright on the surface of a planet, the player has access to the delivery panel of the planet. They can then select the packages from the selection available on this planet, depending on its rarity, destination, and worth. In Orbital Ex, packages function as both the health of the player and their objective.

Display for the deliveries on the planet (left) and once picked up (right)

In the planet UI, flavor text about the planet is given, as well as a choice of three items are available. If the player currently holds packages destined for this planet, they can submit them with the "Fulfill Order" button and take some more to bring to the next planet. After clicking "Takeoff", the player must leave the planet's orbit before the UI can be reopened.

In the side panel, the player can check the state of their packages as they deteriorate thanks to the yellow side healthbar. Furthermore, they can click on the packages to set the direction indicator to point towards the destination planet.

Spritesheet of the possible packages

Throughout the game, the player can encounter 16 total different packages, selected randomly according to their rarity. With each their durability as well, the player must be careful not to break them, as a damaged or broken item is worth much less points. Even more, the player is only allowed 3 broken packages before losing the game.

Package icons serving as "lives"

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