Introduction
8 years ago, I stumbled over a small game called Gravity for my HP48 calculator (it should still be available at hpcalc.org). It fascinated me to see the influence of gravitation onto an object in motion, so I decided to write my own version for Windows. Out of this one evolved D.S.V. Gravity, the "story" of an exploration star ship, of which JGravity is the fourth version. Enjoy the beauty of mathematical simplicity and observe the effects of the Chaos Theory...
Play JGravity!
Game Options
Enter a number and click. The same number always returns the same game!
Rules / Explications
- Game principle is the law of gravitation. All the planets (white circles) on screen exert gravitational forces on the probes you launch. The more mass a planet has (i.e. the bigger it is), the stronger its influence will be.
- Launch the probes by entering an angle (number between -180 and 180 degrees, being 0 straight ahead and increasing counterclockwise) and by clicking on Launch! or by indicating the direction with your mouse and then clicking twice.
- Stop flying probes by hitting Abort or by clicking once into the game screen.
- Avoid hitting yourself (your ship) or the alien ship (the flying saucer).
- If the game screen gets too crowded with trace dots, try Refreshing it. The zoom out box can be closed by clicking into it.
- On game over, click into the screen for trying the same game again or hit New Game for a different one.
- To reproduce a specific game, you need its random seed (by clicking on the asterisk (*) you can switch between the random seeds of the current and the previous game). Type it in at the Game Options section and click there on New game.
- In case you have no idea with which angle to start, try the Panic function. After you watched the probes flying, you may switch through the different launching angles by clicking on the asterisk (*) several times.
- If you just want to experiment, check the Infty-mode box. Like this you'll have an unlimited amount of probes and you won't be able to lose (or win) the game.
- If you check GravField, the gravitational field will be displayed on screen. Maybe it helps, or maybe it just looks nice...
- Experiment and enjoy (you might like to observe the nice patterns flewn by your probes). And remember: not every puzzle may be solved...
Mission Descriptions
- To hit the target is the simplest mission. Just try to get one probe crashing into the target.
- Scanning the alien ship is a little bit more difficult: try to get as near as possible to the alien ship without hitting it.
- To scan some planets you need quite some skills: get your probe into the atmospheres (the gray circles) of the required amount of (different) planets without crashing into them.
- Keeping the balance just means that your probe should fly on and on without escaping or hitting anything for as many ticks as indicated (one tick is equal to one trace dot).
