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Universe Sandbox

universesandbox.com

180 pointshoag41 comments

For what it's worth, I own the first version of this and while it's interesting, it doesn't grip me in the way a game needs to. It's something you mess around with for a bit, enjoy, then forget. Might be really useful in trying to create a universe for a fiction, say, but I feel you need some personal motivation to play this (I didn't find my initial 'that's interesting and cool' was enough over time).

I think that's a pretty apt description of any sandbox game. Some people find the genre really fun and interesting, but it's really a matter of preference.

Even games like SimCity and Minecraft?

The genre is interesting in that it includes stuff that could barely be considered a game (more like toys). No progression, goals, challenge or reward really. But then there are some like SimCity which I would consider more engaging than most games of any genre.

I think it depends on how creative you are. I wouldn't describe myself as creative, and I am not a big fan of sandbox style games.

In fact, open world games in general tend to be worse for me than more linear style titles. The freedom of choice is overwhelming.

> I think it depends on how creative you are. I wouldn't describe myself as creative, and I am not a big fan of sandbox style games.

I don't think it depends on how creative you are; I think it depends on what kind of experience you are looking for in a video game.

I think everyone enjoys being creative to an extent, everyone enjoys more analytical thinking to an extent and everyone enjoys more instinctive activities that create a state of "flow" to an extent. These extents vary from person to person and can be very large or very small.

But equally, everyone's daily life, job and routine requires creativity, analytical thinking and instinctual behaviour to greater and lesser degrees.

The kind of video games people enjoy can't be divided simply into "games for creative people" and "games for analytical people". The kind of experiences people seek out or enjoy are a result of the complex interplay between their natural proclivities and how those proclivities are stimulated, drained or left idle by the rest of their lives.

I wonder if this can simulate the view of the sky from a planet's surface, given an interesting planetary system. I'd like to simulate what the day/night phases look like on the namesake planet of Kim Stanley Robinson's "Aurora" that I have just read... the moon orbiting a super-earth itself orbiting Tau Ceti.

Or for that matter, the planet in some science fiction novel (can't remember the name) that orbits in some weird trinary (or higher) system and only has nightfall once a century (triggering a social breakdown everytime it occurs).

I think you are talking about Nightfall by Asimov. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nightfall_(Asimov_short_story_...

Yes that's the one.

What you want is Space Engine [en.spaceengine.org/]. Also a sandbox. Allows you to fly from star to star, galaxy to galaxy, with billions of planets, nebulae, black holes, clusters, etc. to choose from.

As an example: tonight I had a few minutes to kill so I visited a small desert (Mars-like) planet with a thin ring located in an orbit around dual stars located in a globular cluster. By day, one sun rose and then another. Absolutely scorching the broad plains and distant mountains. Night eventually fell and the sky was burning with the crimson light of the thousands of red giants in the cluster and the brilliant white light of the galactic center. The light was broken slightly by the silhouette of the rings' arc overhead. Was quite beautiful.

Nicely spoke! You should write sci-fi

Thank you!

You can, in fact, place yourself on the surface of a planet in this game to see what hell you hath wrought above.

I don't love how the preview was done with the kinds of things I'd probably try in the first few hours.

I would love seeing what a couple hundred (or more) hours devoted to this could create.

It's kind of like the carnival games -- there needs to be a person showing me how "easy" it is, to suck me in.

My favorite feature of Universe Sandbox is completely silly. It's the light pulse. You can send out a pulse at the speed of light and watch it expand and overtake other bodies.

It's really nifty for visualizing just how slow light speed really is in a cosmic sense.

Is the simulation accurate enough to simulate complex starting scenarios, for example the scenario of the planetary migration: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Formation_and_evolution_of_the...

> According to the nebular hypothesis, the outer two planets are in the "wrong place". Uranus and Neptune (known as the "ice giants") exist in a region where the reduced density of the solar nebula and longer orbital times render their formation highly implausible. The two are instead thought to have formed in orbits near Jupiter and Saturn, where more material was available, and to have migrated outward to their current positions over hundreds of millions of years.

I don't expect that it get exactly the current situation, but at least that it's possible to see something similar.

If this had oculus or some other VR support I would be in 100%. I love an N body physics sim, especially one with nice graphics, so I would pay dearly to be able to experience it at full scale. It's a lifelong dream.

Can you create a focused, high intensity gamma ray burst and blast a planet with it? What about sending a white dwarf careening through our solar system?

I can't really speak to gamma ray bursts, but you can definitely shoot astronomical bodies through solar systems, into planets, or their moons.

Beautiful beautiful program. Some of the preset scenarios are great (i.e. galaxy's colliding, Jupiters moons)

(also, often on sale on Steam)

This is freaking amazing

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