Gaming Lunar Flight - A Fictional Lunar Module Simulation

[sh0v0r]

Hi everyone,

My name is Sean, I am the developer of a little indie title called Lunar Flight. I have been working away on this title for about 15 months now in my spare time at home. It has been developed with no budget other than several thousand hours of my time.

The Admin team of Orbiter have graciously permitted me to share my game here as some of you may be interested in checking it out.

While Lunar Flight is a simulation, it is a fictional one that presents the opportunity to fly the Lunar Module around on the surface of the moon. It's creative direction is towards entertainment as opposed to being a factual representation of both the moon and the LM's systems. However the physics modelling and other game mechanics should be very appealing to space flight fans. If you're looking absolute realism this is probably not the game for your but if you love games, love space and like a real challenge Lunar Flight should be something you will find quite interesting.

Here is the games summary:

A modern take on the classic arcade game, Lunar Lander, Lunar Flight extends the experience to a fully, fictionalised Lunar Module Simulator providing a variety of mission types involving Transporting Cargo, Acquiring Data at Survey locations and locating Lost Cargo. Completing missions earns experience points and money to be used to Refuel, Repair and Upgrade the Lunar Module.

In addition to missions there are Time Trial challenges complete with Online Leader boards and a globally ranked ‘Pilots’ Leaderboard, ranked by experience.To round out the game there are a variety of Achievements to provide additional challenges and objectives.

Lunar Flight features very atmospheric sound and visuals, creating a very immersive experience and is designed to engage the player’s senses as well as their appreciation for realistic physics. Fans of space flight will be pleased to know that it futures proper Newtonian physics behaviour and will provide one of the most authentic and dynamic space based, low gravity flight experiences they can have.

While being simulation oriented it is also designed to be accessible and fun and supports the XBox 360 controller by default but can be configured with almost any controller setup.

A truly unique and challenging flight simulation experience, Lunar Flight will give you many hours of immersive, addictive & rewarding gameplay.

Videos:

Please Select the 720p quality setting and watch these video in Full Screen.

Trailer

Beta Overview Demonstration

Screenshots:

 

[Quick_Nick]

Very impressive. I'll probably install this over the weekend, if my laptop can handle it. I think it would be more fun developing this sort of game even than playing one!
I see it uses Unity. What kind of tools did that offer, and what else did you use to develop the game, if you don't mind me asking?

 

[iamwearingpants]

That looks AMAZING!

I'm going to the site now, can't wait to try it!

EDIT: Aww, it's 5 bucks. I don't have any money

 

[Quick_Nick]

It seems I'm spending the night looking into Unity. :lol: It seems powerful indeed. I installed the software, played around, and tried the Android demo which ran incredibly well despite my poor little phone, the great graphics of the AngryBots Demo, and the possible several layers of interpreters. So I'm optimistic about Lunar Flight working just fine on my computer. And I can't possibly complain about it being only $5. Even simpler simulations are sometimes sold for ten times that.

 

[Lord Wasteland]

Interesting, now where is my $50 giftcard...

 

[Quick_Nick]

Interesting, now where is my $50 giftcard...

I was thinking the same thing! I don't have a credit card, but I've got an unused Discover giftcard.

 

[Keatah]

Looks like fun, flying around with the descent stage and whatnot.

 

[sh0v0r]

Hope you have fun with it guys!

A new review went up today for it if you would like to have a look: http://www.diygamer.com/2012/01/craft-lunar-flight-review/

----- Post added at 22:13 UTC ----- The previous post was at 22:08 UTC -----

Very impressive. I'll probably install this over the weekend, if my laptop can handle it. I think it would be more fun developing this sort of game even than playing one!
I see it uses Unity. What kind of tools did that offer, and what else did you use to develop the game, if you don't mind me asking?

Unity is quite a powerful engine platform, the tools are limited though, you will need to write allot of code. The good thing is there is heaps of information out there and a great development community with lots of free resources.

I used some asset store plugins, Unify Wiki, Visual Studio, Photoshop, 3DSmax, Audacity, L3DT for Terrain heightfields and lots of trial and error.

Lunar Flight is written in C#

 

[FADEC]

It looks very amazing!

But, I wonder why nobody developes a historical stand-alone Apollo simulation instead of something fictional or something like the Space Shuttle Mission Simulator. There are so many people who would love to fly Apollo in a stand-alone simulation

 

[sh0v0r]

It looks very amazing!

But, I wonder why nobody developes a historical stand-alone Apollo simulation instead of something fictional or something like the Space Shuttle Mission Simulator. There are so many people who would love to fly Apollo in a stand-alone simulation

You mean something like this: http://eaglelander3d.com/

 

[Scruce]

Make that two that exist already.

 

[NovaSilisko]

Make that two that exist already.

Scruce, you have inadvertently scarred me for life.

 

[FADEC]

I'm not talking about games. I'm talking about simulations. For example: visuals like AMSO combined with systems like NASSP in a stand-alone product like Space Shuttle Mission 2007.

Eagle Lander 3D is just made for casual gaming. It only covers the lunar landing part of Apollo. It's not a stand-alone Apollo simulator. It's just what it is: an eagle lander.

And are you serious about the "Apollo Simulator"? I thought that Orbiter users are quite intelligent and ambitious and would not pay even 50 cent for something like this. I'm afraid h:

 

[sh0v0r]

I'm not talking about games. I'm talking about simulations. For example: visuals like AMSO combined with systems like NASSP in a stand-alone product like Space Shuttle Mission 2007.

Eagle Lander 3D is just made for casual gaming. It only covers the lunar landing part of Apollo. It's not a stand-alone Apollo simulator. It's just what it is: an eagle lander.

And are you serious about the "Apollo Simulator"? I thought that Orbiter users are quite intelligent and ambitious and would not pay even 50 cent for something like this. I'm afraid h:

Well, what can I say... My game is fun, you should try it...

 

[Napalm42]

I'm gonna kinda have to agree with FADEC. I can appreciate the amount of work and creativity involved in the creation of the systems and such. To me, Orbiter already fits this niche in a way that I am extremely satisfied with, and it's free. In this case, I'll politely decline.

 

[Juanelm]

Looks really cool, I might check it out. Thanks!

 

[Artlav]

Looks promising.

Judging by the screenshots and videos, all activity is restricted to that one huge crater.
Are you planning on adding orbital operations and/or an ability to go into orbit or do suborbital hops?
Or just concentrate on making the "authentic and dynamic space based, low gravity flight experience" exactly what it says on the box?

Interesting HUD orientation indicator.
Is it your idea?
If so, would you mind if i use something similar in Orbiter and Spaceway vessels?

 

[sh0v0r]

Looks promising.

Judging by the screenshots and videos, all activity is restricted to that one huge crater.
Are you planning on adding orbital operations and/or an ability to go into orbit or do suborbital hops?
Or just concentrate on making the "authentic and dynamic space based, low gravity flight experience" exactly what it says on the box?

Interesting HUD orientation indicator.
Is it your idea?
If so, would you mind if i use something similar in Orbiter and Spaceway vessels?

The game is about flying around on the surface, there won't be any orbital missions. Altitude is restricted to 750 meters, flying out of the map boundaries results in a catastrophic explosion. The playable map area is 2x2 klms.

Their are 3 maps in total.
- Practice Crater - Bases are close together and have very little altitude difference.
- Rolling Hills - Bases further apart, some variation to altitudes.
- Canyons - Bases Furthest apart, extreme variation in altitudes.

This is in addition to more challenging Time Trial routes & heavier lost cargo loads.

Each map has 4 bases
Each map has 3 Time Trials per base for a total of 36 time trials each with a Leaderboard
Each map has 4 Survey Locations per base, 16 per map.
Each map has 10 Lost Cargo locations.

There are 4 upgrade types with 3 levels each:
Thrust - Increase main thrust power
Fuel - Adds increased fuel usage efficiency
RCS - Increase RCS thrust power
Stabiliser- Adds a gyro rotation damper

I have no problem with you borrowing my heading indicator design.

 

[FADEC]

Well, what can I say... My game is fun, you should try it...

It probably is. It looks amazing.

I'm not criticising your game. I'm just disappointed that, although there are quite a few skilled developers out there, nobody really is interested in a historical and technological correct Apollo simulation. But this also is the case for other historical space programs.

There are certainly another worthy games/simulations. Especially addons for Orbiter. But, don't understand me wrong, nothing of it really does represent a complete simulation. Shuttle fleet is awesome. But: no instrument panels and procedures. SSU also is nice. But: incomplete. AMSO: awesome. But: no instrument panels. NASSP: instrument panels, but incomplete and no comparable visuals to AMSO. And away from Orbiter: Space Shuttle Mission 2007. Awesome detial of procedures and the flight deck. But the engine is far below the quality of Orbiter (I hope it changes with the next version of SSM).

There is a lot to chose. But almost nothing is complete (and likely won't become). The latest SpaceX addon for Orbiter is going to become one of the most complete historical addons/simulations I think (if the interior of Dragon will be implemented in future). There is also Mercury but it's quite old and not updated for the latest version of Orbiter. Correct me if I am wrong. But that's it.

I know that the community has done lots of awesome jobs and put hard work into Orbiter and all the addons. But on the other hand, Orbiter is more than 10 years old. And I expected that after such a period of time there would be something like AMSO and NASSP as one thing sooner or later. But they won't go together which really is a pain in the a**. And then there is the new Apollo game. It's nice for sure, but the waiting for a historical thing which looks as breathtaking as that new Apollo game continues...:beathead: :lol:

But it's too far off topic. Don't worry. Your game certainly is very nice anyway

 

[sh0v0r]

It probably is. It looks amazing.

I'm not criticising your game. I'm just disappointed that, although there are quite a few skilled developers out there, nobody really is interested in a historical and technological correct Apollo simulation. But this also is the case for other historical space programs.

There are certainly another worthy games/simulations. Especially addons for Orbiter. But, don't understand me wrong, nothing of it really does represent a complete simulation. Shuttle fleet is awesome. But: no instrument panels and procedures. SSU also is nice. But: incomplete. AMSO: awesome. But: no instrument panels. NASSP: instrument panels, but incomplete and no comparable visuals to AMSO. And away from Orbiter: Space Shuttle Mission 2007. Awesome detial of procedures and the flight deck. But the engine is far below the quality of Orbiter (I hope it changes with the next version of SSM).

There is a lot to chose. But almost nothing is complete (and likely won't become). The latest SpaceX addon for Orbiter is going to become one of the most complete historical addons/simulations I think (if the interior of Dragon will be implemented in future). There is also Mercury but it's quite old and not updated for the latest version of Orbiter. Correct me if I am wrong. But that's it.

I know that the community has done lots of awesome jobs and put hard work into Orbiter and all the addons. But on the other hand, Orbiter is more than 10 years old. And I expected that after such a period of time there would be something like AMSO and NASSP as one thing sooner or later. But they won't go together which really is a pain in the a**. And then there is the new Apollo game. It's nice for sure, but the waiting for a historical thing which looks as breathtaking as that new Apollo game continues...:beathead: :lol:

But it's too far off topic. Don't worry. Your game certainly is very nice anyway

Yeah I totally understand and thanks for the nice comments.

I wanted my game to be accessible to a greater variety of people and making it really hardcore would alienate allot of people not to mention impede my ability to be creative with it and step outside the constraints of realism.

I think the main reason it will be unlikely that anyone will take on such a project is due to the scope of work and small niche of people that will be able to get the most out of it. It would not be commercially viable for a publisher to gamble on.