Space Flight Simulator

Started by gpaw, April 13, 2013, 10:24:58 AM

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gpaw

I made this app using jPCT-AE. Not sure if I would call it a "game", as it doesn't involve any goal other than simulating the trajectories of planets and spaceships. The app is focused on realism rather than gameplay.

Here's a link to the free version:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=gpaw.projects.space.spaceflightLite

And here's the full version:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=gpaw.projects.space.spaceflight

Hope you enjoy it!

raft

i loved it ;D reminded me to go camping soon to see the stars without city lights' interference  ;)

zbych

Looks nice. Somehow it reminds me the game from Amiga (and PC too) - "Frontier". The effect of city lights in the menu screen looks great.

EgonOlsen

I liked it too. Some things remained unclear to me though. For example, when selecting earth, i can obviously launch a space ship. I thought i did that, but i didn't see anything moving away from earth... ???

I will add it to the projects page if you don't mind!?

gpaw

When you launch a spaceship from Earth to the Moon it should launch immediately, but for interplanetary trajectories you need a correct alignment of the planets before launch. You can see the countdown to launch at the upper right of the screen. Several people have asked me about this, so I will have to think something to make it more intuitive, perhaps putting the countdown in a different color to catch the user's attention.

Of course you can add it to the projects page  :)

gpaw

I've made quite a lot of changes in the app since my last post, so you might want to check it again.
Most significant change is the addition of a "free flight mode", which allows to direct the spaceship's orbit manually. Also a tutorial to help to better understand the controls.

moodroid

Good work.  Graphics look good and I love the hypnotic background music.

I can offer a few constructive remarks:
The loading time is good (from the moment I start the app until the rotating earth animation starts) but its always bad to have the screen go black while loading even if for only two seconds - I always prefer a loading animation or image more than the black "is it stuck" screen.

The opening screen with the rotating earth reminded me of the model from a book by Smithwick et al. called "pro opengl es for android" which focuses on a solar system model, Your work surpasses the models in the book in most aspects but they did get the light/material properties right.(Not worth buying the book for someone at your level) ,  I guess its something about the reflected light from the ocean seems better there (boost the shininess?).  Last thing, The user interaction is not so intuitive and hard to understand what's going on.

Over all-
You Totally Rock!

-Moodroid.

EgonOlsen

I've finally managed to add it to the projects page!