Our code:

https://github.com/zakarya23/EinsteinsGateToTheFuture

Video showing what we made:

https://youtu.be/LA2Brrf4f4Y

Our Plan

Our aim was to make a game to simulate what it may feel like when using various propulsion technologies to travel at, or faster, than the speed of light. This is a summary of what we wanted to achieve. 

The player will be loaded into space where they will need to collect orbs to upgrade their propulsion technology and achieve a speed of light. They will encounter obstacles along the way, such as asteroids, planets and various enemies, which have the ability to damage or hinder the progress of the player. If the player is damaged too much (indicated by the red health bar in the HUD), the game is over. Enemies and asteroids can be outmaneuvered or defeated by the player’s ion blasters. These blasters will have limited ammunition (indicated by the blue bar in the HUD), which can be obtained by collecting more orbs.

Avoiding hazards, the user must collect the orbs scattered across the map to increase their score, get faster and upgrade their propulsion abilities. Once certain speeds are reached, the player will unlock a new propulsion system, such as a chemical thruster, electrothermal thruster or propulsers utilising solar power (e.g. solar sails) or nuclear fission. These propulsion systems each have associated descriptions and can be viewed on the heads-up-display (HUD) such that the player can read what this technology is about, or some fun facts about that technology, which will be refreshed after certain durations whilst having it in play. Ideally, rigid body dynamics and kinematics are to be implemented to simulate the movement of objects of mass in a vacuum (space), gravitational fields (by planets or other space bodies) as well as collisions with other objects. Currently, the rigid body kinematics and dynamics are not yet implemented due to experience in using Unity as well as time constraints.

The faster the player gets, or the closer the player gets to the speed of light, the more things begin to slow down around them. They will see planets and objects around them rotate and move slowly with respect to themselves. This is to mimic the doppler effect and things around the player will change colours accordingly. When they travel forward at high speeds (i.e. closer to the speed of light), their view site will increase and if they look back it will be complete darkness. This can be achieved by implementing appropriate lighting with the camera angles (darker when looking at the front of the character, i.e. the rear view, and a range of colours representing the widening of the electromagnetic spectrum when looking at the back of the character, i.e. the front view).

It was also intended that once the player reaches a certain score (or speed) in the gameplay, they are able to access unlockables in the main menu, which contain various propulsion technologies, their descriptions, statistics and fun facts, as well as links to external sites or resources, such as NASA presentations, documentations or webpages, which contain further information on the technology and research being undertaken to make travelling near the speed of light a reality.

Due to some constraints such as University commitments and learning Unity and C# for the first time, we were only able to get to the stage of implementing the initial obstacles (i.e. asteroids), collecting the orbs (for increasing score and speed), particles for recreating a “starry” atmosphere, basic implementation of transitioning between propulsion thrusters, and basic character and camera movement across the map. There are also some minor bugs in the program which need to be resolved for future development.

Email to get more details:

z4zakarya@gmail.com

aarnavv@student.unimelb.edu.au