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c/SlingshotSpeeders · by masltech@lemmy.world · 6d

Slingshot Speeders v0.1.5 — make maps, two new circuits, Home rebuilt (WE KEEP SHIPPING)

Slingshot Speeders is the first orbital racing game, a free 2D orbit race in the browser. Inverse-square gravity. One Stock ship. Public boards. The server re-flies your button tape — you never send position or time.

PLAY SLINGSHOT SPEEDERS NOW

v0.1.5 is live.

⚠️ Boards Wiped

The live database has been wiped with this update.

SCORE / TIME / Δv, lobby races, Watch tapes, and Community Maps from the previous era are gone. (Sign in with Google still works.)

This is still experimental alpha. Duality, Apollo, 3-lap Trefoil, MapMake, and the Stock sheet are a different game than the tapes we had. Mixing them would make last month’s gold look fake, and it would mean shipping a pile of compatibility for old rows. A clean cut now is the honest move.

Empty boards. First times on the new era.

Highlights

  • MapMake is open: Sign in with Google. Build a map. PUBLISH puts it on Community Maps for everyone to fly. (Free accounts get 1 new map/week. Experimental — it may have issues).
  • Two new circuit races (Duality & Apollo): Same lobby as Trefoil: JOIN / SPECTATE, a 10s countdown, Elo. No green corridor — fly your own path between the gold lines.
  • Home is rebuilt: Opens on Home with Prime for beginners, followed by Duality and Apollo marked New!. Filter the rest via Easy / Medium / Hard / Extreme / Circuits. Community is now a dedicated tab next to Circuits.

MapMake

Sign in with Google to open MapMake (MENU). Guests can fly the shelf, not the editor.

  • Community Shelf: Community Maps is the public shelf (newest first on the Community Home tab). Uses the same PLAY / VIEW / i cards as official maps, tagged with Made by.
  • Limits: Free accounts can publish 1 new map/week. Alpha supporters can publish 1/day.
  • Palette & Placement: Entities sit in a left palette (wells, pads, walls, win rings, checkpoints, hold/donut rings, cargo, refuel wells, rails, sliding doors, spokes).
    • Drag to place, or click to select then click to drop.
    • Hold Shift to place without grid snap.
    • Esc returns to SELECT.
  • Inspector & Rules: The right rail edits the selected object. The inspector sets laps, gate order, and flip. A built-in problems list blocks PUBLISH if a map is unwinable.
  • Saving & Publishing:
    • SAVE keeps an editable draft (max 3 saved maps).
    • PUBLISH names, locks, and pushes it to Community Maps. (No separate SUBMIT step).
    • PUBLISH names the map in the MAP NAME field (same as YOUR NAME). LOCK publishes it. SAVE asks for a name pre-filled in that same field. The field is a centered card, not a full-screen bar.
  • Gameplay & Testing:
    • PLAY starts on your placed pad. An N-PUSH or N-BODY plus a gate no longer moves the ship onto that mass.
    • Fly-test WIN acts as EDIT and PUBLISH — not HOME and SHARE.
    • EDIT next to VIEW opens that map as a new MapMake draft while the published version remains locked.
    • YOUR MAPS displays SAVED and PUBLISHED. Deleting requires a single confirmation. Editing a published map prompts to create a new version.
  • Details & UX:
    • LAPS only displays once a map has 2+ checkpoints (a win ring on its own has no laps).
    • A winning orbit sits inside the win ring; the green hoop is just outside the capture zone.
    • MapMake System view displays the trajectory line directly from the pad.
    • Made by text displays in gold for alpha supporters and white for free accounts.

Duality, Apollo & Trefoil

  • Duality: 3 laps around two wells, each featuring a close moon locked on a rail. Start on the left line. Gold lines sit on the far-left and far-right well rims (both flown upward in order). A lap counts when crossing the first line again. Purple orbits above/below refill your tank. Nose orientation matches the cyan arrow on JOIN and at GO.
  • Apollo: 2 laps around a planet and a close rail-bound moon. Start on the planet line. Gold lines sit on the far side of the planet and far side of the moon in order. (Planet & Moon remains free-flying capture; Apollo is the official race).
  • Lobby & Finish: Uses the standard Trefoil lobby (JOIN / SPECTATE, 10s countdown, Elo). Finishes save directly to the race board without throwing SCORE write errors.
  • Trefoil Updates: Now 3 laps. The center well is a pit — resting inside the purple ring refills your tank in 5 seconds.
  • General Mechanics:
    • Circuit races start on the first gold line. The next line pulses gold. Lines turn green when flown, resetting to gold when hitting the subsequent line. Crossing line #1 again triggers the lap/finish.
    • Trefoil, Duality, Apollo, and Water Rapids have dropped the green corridor — fly any path you want between gold lines.
    • Championship remains 15 maps (1,125 max). Lobby races track via Elo.

Home & Navigation UI

  • Structure: Opens on Home: Prime (beginners) → Duality & Apollo (New!) → Easy / Medium / Hard / Extreme / Circuits.
  • Menu Hub: Community Maps, Recent Runs, and MapMake live in MENU. Settings is consolidated into a single row.
  • Sizing & Links: MENU width scales strictly to the longest row. How to play and Social link to dedicated site pages (/how & /social). MENU includes Philosophy (explaining leaderboard integrity).
  • Map Viewing: VIEW map layout features HOME, PLAY, and SHARE at the top. PLAY launches immediately without returning to Home. Removed background dimmed maps on Home.
  • Track Info: Trefoil i displays active race plays and wins. Community Maps cards include i info.
  • Visual Tweaks:
    • Donut classified as Easy; Push Pull as Medium.
    • Loading indicator updated to a single sun wrapped by two-way rotating dots.
    • RECENT RUNS logs the last 100 flights.
    • Sign Out row matches standard menu sizing.

Gold Lines, Moons & Flight Feel

  • Gold Lines: Thinner visuals featuring a single directional arrow underneath. Touch the stick to register line contact (arrow denotes direction only).
  • Line FX: Active lines pulse deep purple-to-gold mist. Flying a line shatters it into blinking green firefly dust that wisps away (blurry streaks/orbs removed).
  • Map Physics & Start: Moons and rails remain stationary until GO. Duality, Apollo, and moving maps load on identical sky states.
  • G-Force & Thrust:
    • G-force tracks felt engine load; coasting and slingshots read 0 g.
    • Afterburn doubles thrust, billing the tank at 250% of a standard W tick. (Experimental tuning).
  • Bug Fixes: Trajectory lines no longer disappear after opening VIEW or Watch tapes. Grid input stutter fixed when sitting on RACE FINISHED.
  • Water Rapids: 3 staggered loops, 3 gold lines. Starts top-center above loop 1 (nose 50 m/s down). Uses Trefoil lobby system and Foot Work style Home cards (SCORE / TIME / Δv).
  • Foot Work: Wells are standard (no purple dotted refuel rings).
  • Orbit Markers: Ring orbits use white dots; purple dots strictly indicate refuel rings.

Watch Mode

  • Replays: Watching a tape offers Play Map to join the room. Homemade tapes open the source community map.
  • Accuracy Fixes: Duality/Apollo replays preserve moon positions at GO (prevents false crashes/fly-offs). Water Rapids/Foot Work tapes accurately replicate line pulsing and green flash hits.
  • Profiles & Camera: Clicking names in signed-in tapes opens player profiles. Free-look camera retains your panned position without snapping back to the ship during scrub, skip, or restart.

Accounts, Site & Ranking

  • Account Page: Settings moved to Account next to Share (toggles: afterburn, kill rotation, start view). Modifying values no longer prints a "Saved" status line.
  • Profile Layout: Counters widened (MAPS COMPLETED fits on 1 line). Removed Crashes metric (covered by Plays/Wins). Share section split into link copy + embed code.
  • Site Docs:
  • Navigation & Typography: Top-left site MENU matches in-game layout. Fixed site bar with centered Slingshot Speeders header. Paragraph text across long pages updated to a readable monospaced font; Zector reserved for titles and leaderboards.
  • Analytics: Usage displays full-width single-row charts (Visits, Plays, Δv, Distance, Rotation, Accounts) with whole integer counts.

Controls: WASD Thrust | Q / E Rotate | Shift Afterburn | Click any celestial body to pin the trajectory line.

2 points · 1 comments · view on lemmy.world

1 Comments

jaykrown@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 6d

Known visual bug background showing an imprint of previous run last frame. Started since map making system live, shouldn't cause interruptions to gameplay for now.