Slingshot Speeders | The First Orbital Racing Game

Slingshot Speeders is the first orbital racing game. Slingshot through real gravity. Capture the orbit. Beat the board.

The first orbital racing game is free in your browser: a top-down space race with real inverse-square gravity, force-based thrust, and gravity-assist slingshots. It is an orbital mechanics game where you win by capturing a closed Kepler orbit inside a goal ring — not by crossing a finish line.

About

Built by Masland Tech LLC in Rust. The Bevy client runs as WebAssembly in the browser. Physics, input, and race rules live in one shared simulation crate. The server is authoritative: clients send button presses only, never position, velocity, or race time. That keeps the competitive leaderboard honest and the orbits deterministic.

How it works

Gravity is inverse-square. Distant wells fall off; cores kill you on contact.
The ship is force-based. Main thrust and RCS change velocity; Q/E rotate; coasting is free.
A trajectory line shows your current orbit. Capture means that orbit fits inside the ring.
Cyan is velocity, gold is thrust acceleration, pink is gravitational acceleration. The trajectory line is the coast. On Rendezvous, green is velocity relative to the moving ring. A dotted white line is that ring's orbit. Purple dots are only refuel.
Public leaderboards rank fastest captures. Score is time and leftover fuel, weighted the same: twice the time halves it, emptying the tank halves it again.

Maps

Reach — Easy. Recommended for beginners. Start in orbit, raise it into the hold circle above the well, sit 5 seconds.
Prime — Easy. Recommended for beginners. Two small wells side by side. Start in a clockwise circular orbit on the far left of the left well, going up. Capture a closed orbit inside the green ring on the right.
Trefoil — Medium. 3-lap race around three wells. Start on the first gold line. The next line pulses; a line turns green when you fly it, then gold again on the next. A lap counts when you cross the first line again. The small well in the middle crawls a slow clockwise loop; sit in the purple ring to refill.
Trio — Medium. Three large bodies. Start in orbit around a puller; hop and capture the other puller. All three pull.
Snake — Medium. A short sideways S. Slingshot left to right. Moons circle at different sizes; a few push as they move. Capture the green ring on the last well.
Elevator — Medium. Start around the lower well. Hitch a rising well on either side, then capture a tight orbit in the green ring above.
Rendezvous — Hard. Two bodies orbit each other. Start around one; match the moving green ring in orbit around the other for 5 seconds.
Slingshot — Medium. Start in orbit around a bigger well with a scripted well circling it. Capture a closed orbit at the well on the right, which has its own orbiting well.
Planet & Moon — Medium. Start in low orbit around a static planet. Burn out and capture the moving moon.
Temple — Hard. Two wells, a sliding door between them, rotating spokes on the right well. Capture a closed orbit in the green ring. The spokes still kill if they hit you there.
Donut — Easy. Two wells. Fit a closed orbit in the green ring: inside the outer edge, outside the hole.
Water Rapids — Medium. Start top-center above the first loop, nose down at 50 m/s. Slalom three wells. Fly up through each gold line — the next one pulses, and the one you just flew is green. The last line is the finish.
Foot Work — Hard. Nine wells in a sideways S. Start on the first gold stick. Sticks poke out top, then bottom, then top. Fly each from the left; the next one pulses, and the one you just flew is green. The last stick is the finish.
Cargo Delivery — Extreme. Planet and a closer, faster moon. Hold the yellow ring around the planet for 5 seconds; it turns green and cargo comes aboard. Then hold the smaller yellow ring around the moon for 5 seconds.
Apollo — Medium. Two laps around a planet and a close moon. Start on the planet line. The moon rides a rail. Gold lines on the far side of the planet and the far side of the moon, in order; a lap counts when you cross the first line again. SOLO, MULTI, or EVENT.
Duality — Medium. Three laps around two wells. Start on the left line. SOLO against the clock, or MULTI / EVENT on a shared grid with a 5 s countdown and Elo. A close moon rails around each well. Gold lines on the far left and far right, both flown up, in order; a lap counts when you cross the first line again. Purple orbits above and below refill the tank.

FAQ

Is this a real physics space game?

Yes. Orbits use inverse-square gravity and Kepler-style closed-orbit checks, not arcade magnets. Slingshots are gravity assists. Fuel burns only when you thrust.

Can I play Slingshot Speeders in a browser?

Yes. The playable client is a Bevy WebAssembly build. Open this page and race. No install.

Is it competitive?

Yes. Fastest closed-orbit captures go on the public leaderboard per map. Recent runs list wins, crashes, fuel-outs, and quits; click a run to watch the tape. Trefoil lists recent races.

What engine and language is Slingshot Speeders written in?

Rust. Shared simulation in a dedicated crate, Bevy 2D client, Axum WebSocket server, SQLite leaderboards. The same SimState::step runs on server and client.

Do I need an account?

No. Type a pilot name and fly. Sign in with Google if you want YOUR RUNS, a public profile, and MapMake — a free account can publish one new map a week onto Community Maps for everyone to fly. MapMake is experimental and may have issues. More ways to sign in are coming.

How to play

Controls, orbits, and the score — keyboard and touch.

Social

Reddit and Lemmy for the game.

What's new

Version notes for Slingshot Speeders, newest first.

Roadmap

What's next — MapMake, weekly challenges, championship, seasons. Stretch goals, not a shop.

Race standard

The Stock ship every public board uses — mass, engines, Δv, clocks, and score.

Ranking

Season Alpha — championship points, the 0–1000 rating, and Elo from lobby races.

Philosophy

How the board stays honest — server-authoritative, one Stock ship, no Steam cut.

FAQ

N-body gravity, scoring, and whether this is the first orbital racing game.

Usage

Last seven days of visits, plays, fuel, distance, and rotation.

Press

Press page — play button and [email protected].

Controls

WASD thrust, Q/E rotate, Shift afterburn (tap or hold — Settings), 1 or Tab camera, 2 MAIN/RCS, 3 kill-rot, 4 arrows, 5 trajectory line, Z emote if one is equipped, click a body for relative orbit, R restart, Esc / HOME, scroll zoom. A pad works too: left stick fly, right stick turn, RT afterburn, B emote. Remap both in Settings, next to UI size.