Orbital Anarchy

I was going through some old projects on my laptop and found an Unreal C++ project I completed for an assignment back in college. I wasn't sure if it was worth saving so I opened up the project to take a look at it. It was a simple pickup game in which the player played as a sphere that could move, jump around, and pick up glowing orbs. I kind of chuckled to myself and closed the project, but for some reason, I did not delete it.

Later that month, I thought more about the project. I thought about that sphere moving and jumping around. I thought about how basic and simple it was. I thought about how boring it was. Then, I thought to myself, I bet that sphere wishes it could smash through walls and knock things over. I also bet it wishes it could be frozen or set on fire!

So the next day, I began granting the wishes of that sphere, and a month or so later, out came Orbital Anarchy. It has seen some major upgrades since the day I handed it in as a college assignment. There is now a much more intuitive level with three areas. Moving platforms, slippery floors, destructible objects, exploding propane tanks, flamethrowers, waterfalls, razor-sharp icicles, and even gravity have become the enemy.

The player can transition into one of four states that are changed when the player dies or jumps into a transition area. The first is a rubber sphere that can move faster and jump higher than any other state but will be destroyed by the ice and fire transitions. The second is a steel sphere that moves slower and jumps lower than any other state, however, the player needs to be in this state to be able to transition to any of the next two states. The third is a fire sphere. In this state, the player is (you guessed it!) on fire! This state allows the player to break through the ice door, giving access to a new area. Also, this state gives the player the ability to slam themselves into destructible objects at high velocity (Ram feature). The fourth and final state is the ice sphere. The player is now frozen and can break through the firewall to enter another area. This state also grants the player to use the Ram feature. If the player falls into a body of water in an ice or fire state, they will transition back to steel. If the player dies, they will transition back to rubber. The goal of the game is to collect all of the road cone pickups and lose as few lives as possible while doing it.

I created all the programming(C++ and Blueprint) and level design. The static meshes and particles were acquired from the Epic Store. The music and SFX were acquired from https://www.zapsplat.com, https://www.bensound.com, and https://www.freesound.org. It was built using Unreal Engine.

This game is free for anyone who wants to check it out. It has been optimized for use with a game controller but a keyboard will also work. Pressing Start or P will bring up the pause menu with the controls listed. Thank you very much for your interest! Enjoy the game!