Slingshot Speeders | The First Orbital Racing Game

The first orbital racing game

Slingshot through real gravity. Capture the orbit. Beat the board.

Play a free 2D top-down space race in your browser. It is an orbital mechanics game with real inverse-square gravity, force-based thrust, and gravity-assist slingshots. 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 white coast line shows your current orbit. Capture means that orbit fits inside the ring.
Cyan is velocity, gold is thrust acceleration, pink is gravitational acceleration. White is the coast path. On Rendezvous, green is velocity relative to the moving ring. A dotted purple line is that ring's orbit.
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

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.
Orion — Easy. Start in circular orbit at the left well. One mass in the middle. Capture a closed orbit inside a wide green ring at the right well.
Asteroids — Easy. Start in circular orbit at well A. Slingshot and capture a closed orbit at well B.
Trefoil — Medium. 2-lap corridor race around three wells and a smaller well in the middle. Stay inside the green corridor.
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 planet with one moon. Capture a closed orbit at the well on the right.
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.

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 to follow you. More ways to sign in are coming.

What's new

Version notes for Slingshot Speeders, newest first.

Roadmap

What's next — community maps, ship classes, a $10 alpha supporter pack. Stretch goals, not this cycle.

Race standard

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

Pre-Alpha Archive

SCORE / TIME / Δv and Trefoil from before the wipe. The pre-alpha database is backed up.

FAQ

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

Usage

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

Press

Press page — play button and [email protected].

Controls

WASD thrust, Q/E rotate, Shift toggles afterburn (more push, or more Δv), 1 or Tab camera, 2 MAIN/RCS, 3 kill-rot, 4 arrows, 5 trajectory line, click a body for relative orbit, R restart, Esc / HOME, scroll zoom.