Orbit & Beyond is an educational exploration of our solar system, designed and developed for Lincoln Learning Solutions online curriculum using Unity.

This project was based on public domain information and images sourced from NASA, ESA, Wikipedia and the HYG Star Catalog (all of the stars are based on their actual positions and intensities/colors). I designed and developed a full-scale model of our solar system that can be traversed via a very simplified and stylized orbital dynamics concept. The player’s ship orbits celestial bodies and sling shots between them by reaching escape velocity. In most space games and science fiction ships travel in straight lines through a static and non-relativistic universe. In Orbit and Beyond planets and moons are in motion based on their real-world speed. The ship travels at near-light-speed and we attempted to simulate the theoretical visual effects of space and time dilation.

Technical challenges in this project included:
– wrestling with floating point accuracy at astronomical scales.
– camera tools for artist to create unique angles at each body
– camera transitions and orbital mechanics using linear algebra
– an educator driven database system system for celestial info
– optimizing high fidelity graphics for low end devices and web (namely gen 1 Chromebooks and phones)

The game was programmed solely by myself, using Unity 2021, in C# and published for consumption on the web and android/ios tablets and phones. I assisted in the game’s design and created several effects, and levels (including planets, shaders, animations and transition effects). Principle artwork and general design led by CJ Kuehn, with Matt Casper and Sean Kennedy at Lincoln Learning Solutions.