Slingshot Speeders is a free browser game: 2D, top-down, inverse-square gravity. You slingshot a body, sit a closed orbit, or run two laps of Trefoil. The server re-flies your button tape. The client never sends a pose or a time. Playing this is learning orbital mechanics. That is the product, not a mode.
v0.1.9 was a good test. You showed up, flew, broke MapMake, argued SCORE, told us what was wrong, and what could be better. That feedback is why this exists. Thank you. Slingshot Speeders is officially in open beta: a minimum viable product you can play, race, and build on.
What you can do today
- Official maps from Easy through Extreme: Leap, Reverse, Hover, Catch Up, Flow State, Drop Off, Trefoil, and the rest of the shelf. Championship max is 1650 across twenty-two maps and three lists each.
- SOLO, MULTI, and EVENT on the same courses. Event races allow you to try to forecast the winner and earn in-game currency called Pax.
- Earn Pax and MapMake in the browser. Place bodies, gates, ORBIT, HOLD, REFUEL. Publish and other people fly it on Community Maps.
- Watch any kept run. The tape is the buttons. The line you see is the trajectory line the server already flew.
- Season Zero is running through 1 November 2026. Boards, championship, and Elo are this window. Your name, maps, and tapes archived when it ends.
What we reset, and what we did not
We did not wipe play history. SCORE, TIME, ฮv, and Watch from v0.1.9 are still there. Your old flights still play.
We did clear the test economy so a live shop does not sit on fake money. Pax wallets are back at 0. Shop cosmetics you bought in test are gone. Test FOUNDER'S PACK grants are gone. Sign in, you start at 0 pax, and you earn it in play. That is the honest start.
Eleven people signed in and flew during the v0.1.9 alpha. They keep the Alpha Brick look on the default Brick ship. That is a thank-you for the test, not a purchase and not pax. New sign-ins do not get it. They get the stock Brick and a zero wallet.
FOUNDER'S PACK
The pack is live. $10 to $250 through Stripe. You pick the amount. Same pack at every dollar: Spear, Spear Gold, the gold trail, the gold trajectory line, the gold name, the S chip on the boards, and FOUNDER on your profile. We never list how much anyone gave.
Pax cannot buy it. Paying does not buy pax, a faster ship, or anything from the PAX SHOP. The two shelves never sell the same look. After Season Zero the pack cannot be bought again.
Learn and experience orbital mechanics as you race to become the orbital racing champion!
Play: https://slingshotspeeders.com/

6 Comments
Derg@programming.dev · 3 pts · 9d
Congrats on hitting MVP stage, happy to support the game in a small way! And don't worry, I'll keep dropping feedback, bug reports and arguing score as long as I'm playing, thanks for having an open ear for it. Speaking of...
Ran into something... I don't know what happened, but I swear I've beaten Trefoil before on v0.1.9 at least, but I'm off the leaderboard now. It also happened with my run on my own community map Daytona mid-v0.1.9 (I think, but can't be sure...). Unless it was something manual it might be something to look into?
Also, it still seems to be impossible for me to finish "Trio" and "Planet and Moon"
jaykrown@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 9d
Thanks again Derg. Yes unfortunately Trefoil and Daytona had to be wiped because of the checkpoint sequence issue you mentioned, it changed the map state and thus made the previous scores inequitable. Confirmed that both Trio and Planet & Moon win circles don't activate, both share a win circle around an n-body so I'll be fixing that as soon as possible.
Derg@programming.dev · 2 pts · 9d
Aaaaah thatโs what happened. Makes sense, thanks!
masltech@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 9d
Both the Planet & Moon and Trio maps are working. Thanks for mentioning it. Hotfix! ๐
Derg@programming.dev · 2 pts · 9d
Wee, thanks! Alright letโs go leaderboard domination time!
masltech@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 7d
I wish you the best! You've got the skill, the competition is getting difficult. TITANENGINEER got some pretty high scores yesterday so I had to spend last night getting a higher score than them. ๐๐