Astronomy Games
Explore the Solar System at faster-than-light speeds...
Space Explorer Demo - click here to play
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Screenshots from Space Explorer
Space Explorer is a 3D, interactive simulation that allows you to navigate at faster-than-light speeds through the solar system and beyond. At thousands of times the speed of light, the 48 nearest stars are within reach. Explore the planets and scan them to gather data on diameter, axis inclination, distance from sun, temperature, and "day" and "year" periods. Investigate the nearest stars and see what they are called, what their catalogue name is, and what spectral class they are. All of the stars in this simulation are placed in their actual galactic X Y Z coordinates. The demo version of this game is exactly like the full version, except that you do not have super-light speeds available, and there is a 3-minute time limit per session.
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Locate and eliminate the Invaders by locating known stars by their Galactic coordinates...
Far Star Rescue
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Screenshots from Far Star Rescue
Far Star Rescue is a game that has the player locating nearby stars using galactic X, Y, and Z coordinates. Once the star is located, you must rescue the members of a stranded spacecraft, and defeat the aggressive ship that attacked them in the first place. There is no demo version of Far Star Rescue.
Shockwave Player
The games listed on this page require the Shockwave player to run. Shockwave is a player that is in use by almost 500 million users worldwide. Click here to download and install the Shockwave player if you don't already have it (or go to http://www.adobe.com/products/shockwaveplayer/). On occasion a user may have to uninstall the Shockwave player and install the current version so that media such as our astronomy games run properly. The system requirements for Shockwave are listed here.
Streamed over the Web or downloaded
Our simulations and games can be streamed over the web (using Shockwave) as in the demo example above, or downloaded to your hard drive in a zip file that contains an exe file (currently for PC only). In either event, the Shockwave player must still be installed. When you purchase the full version of a game or simulation, you can download the game or stream it over the web, it is up to you. Depending on your connection speed, you may find performance improves when you are playing the game locally. While both Mac and PC users should have good success with the streamed versions of the games, we cannot currently provide MacIntosh locally-playable versions without further testing. If you are a Mac user and would be interested in testing some of the games, please contact us.
Free Demo Version of Space Explorer
Please make sure your computer and connection are capable of playing the demo of Space Explorer before purchasing the full version. Ultimately, the best way to determine if your computer is capable of running the games is to try it with the demo version. Please confirm that the demo game runs on your computer before purchasing the full version. There is no demo version of Far Star Rescue.
More information about Space Explorer and Far Star Rescue
The Space Explorer simulation is an approximation based on factual data about the planets in our solar system and the nearest stars. Galactic X, Y, and Z locations of near stars are given in Light Years. Distances of stars from our system are given in Parsecs (1 parsec = 3.26 light years). Gliese catalogue numbers are used for all stars where possible. Planetary data is given for diameter (kilometers), distance from the sun (millions of kilometers), planetary year (in earth years), planetary day (in hours), average temperature (centigrade), moons, and inclination of axis (degrees). The player can select three speeds; lightspeed, 1,000 X lightspeed, and 10,000 X lightspeed. Artistic and technical comprimises were made in sizing and placing the planets and moons, and not all moons in the solar system were included due to polygon and texture limitations. In the demo version, only lightspeed is enabled, and the game times out after 3 minutes of play. The full version has all three speeds and lasts 20 minutes before having to be restarted.
Far Star Rescue uses the same environment as Space Explorer but the player is tasked with rescuing stranded astronauts by locating nearby stars. This is done based on an XYZ gimbal navigation device, and stars are located via galactic XYZ coordinates. This game has three levels. Credits: Both games use planetary maps courtesy of NASA. The background starfield was courtesy NASA/JPL-Caltech. The data for star location and xyz galactic coordinates comes from a mixture of the Gliese catalogue, with galactic coordinate calculations made by Winchell Chung http://www.projectrho.com/. All other work generated by 3dcognition.
Purchase the full version of Learn City by going to our Products page.
Bug Reports
If you notice something that is not working in one of our games, please let us know via the contact page. As much detail as you can give us will make the bug easier to find and correct. Try to note what portion of the game you were in when the problem occured, what you were doing at that moment, and describe what happened.