I've been hard at work on the later levels of the game in preparation for launch before the end of 2026! As such, today's update is fairly light on changes for the demo content, but there is one major headline feature: a new Daily Challenge mode for advanced players.
The Daily Challenge is a brand new game mode which presents you with a randomly generated 9-hole course spread across the solar system each day. This is designed to give players who have finished the campaign something to do.
Since the start, I have always wanted to ensure that every one of the 18 holes in the campaign presents a unique new mechanic or idea, so there is no filler and always something new and surprising, and now that the game is close to its final form, I think it lives up to that promise. However, this means that there are a lot of interesting places in the solar system that you simply never go to in the campaign because there wouldn't have been any interesting mechanical reason to go there.
The Daily Challenge is an attempt to encourage exploration of the whole system. In this mode, every hole is a simple "go from A to B", but you'll be constantly exploring new planets and moons, and optimizing your celestial golfing skills. There are no pars on these holes, but everyone in the world gets the same challenge each day, so you can compare your scores at the end.
This mode is available in the demo, but it is limited to just the inner planets and moons, so it's just a taste of what you'll be able to explore in the full game.
Added a confirmation prompt for quitting/restarting a hole.
Added a new UI theme to confirmation dialogs.
The position of the planets in the solar system now accurately reflects their true location in space at a certain date (whereas previously every hole started off with all the planets aligned). Each hole has a specifically chosen start date.
Planet orbits are now eccentric, based on real orbital trajectories (whereas previously they were all circular).
Updated GodotSteam wrapper to version 4.23.1.
Fixed the star background wobbling around when in orbit around a spinning body (this was especially problematic at high simulation speeds).
Fixed the camera teleporting somewhere random in space if the ball changed sphere-of-influence while the camera was panned away. (It now focuses on the ball.)
Fixed mouse hover / click activating tiny moons that are too small to see when zoomed out (when you are trying to click on a planet).
Prevent "apoapsis" flickering text when aiming horizontally.
It turns out that making a game where every level has a unique mechanic means you can't just churn out a bunch of levels. You actually have to build new core gameplay systems for each one.
Over the past month, I've been adding a lot of new systems to the game. Here are a few of the things you'll be able to do in the full version of the game:
Explore the interior of a planet, with correctly modeled gravity.
Alter the trajectory of a small body by slamming into it.
Experience true n-body physics (being gravitationally affected by multiple bodies at the same time) in certain locations, resulting in non-elliptical trajectories.
Travel close to the speed of light, with relativistic effects like time dilation taken into account.
Here are some in-development screenshots from some of these later levels:
I am also getting the demo ready for Steam Next Fest, the demo festival which kicks off in just under two weeks. This means getting the demo into as polished state as possible. If you want to help the game succeed, please do two things:
Give feedback on the current demo, if there is anything that could be better explained or polished.
Play the game on October 19, so Steam sees traffic in the first few days of Next Fest (maybe check out the Daily Challenge on that day?)