Solar 2 is an

open world In video games, an open world is a virtual world in which the Gamer, player can approach objectives freely, as opposed to a world with more linear and structured gameplay. Notable games in this category include ''The Legend of Zelda (video game ...

sandbox video game A sandbox game is a video game with a gameplay element that provides players a great degree of creativity to interact with, usually without any predetermined goal, or with a goal that the players set for themselves. Such games may lack any objec ...

developed by Australian developer Jay Watts' video game studio, Murudai. It was released on 17 June 2011 on

Steam Steam is water vapor, often mixed with air or an aerosol of liquid water droplets. This may occur due to evaporation or due to boiling, where heat is applied until water reaches the enthalpy of vaporization. Saturated or superheated steam is inv ...

for

Microsoft Windows Windows is a Product lining, product line of Proprietary software, proprietary graphical user interface, graphical operating systems developed and marketed by Microsoft. It is grouped into families and subfamilies that cater to particular sec ...

and on 19 June 2011 on

Xbox Live Indie Games Xbox Live Indie Games (XBLIG; previously called Xbox Live Community Games, XBLCG) were video games created by individual developers or small teams of developers released on Microsoft's Xbox Live Marketplace for the Xbox 360. The games were develop ...

for the

Xbox 360 The Xbox 360 is a home video game console developed by Microsoft. As the successor to the Xbox (console), original Xbox, it is the second console in the Xbox#Consoles, Xbox series. It was officially unveiled on MTV on May 12, 2005, with detail ...

. The game was developed with Microsoft's XNA tools, and its development was inspired by indie games such as flOw. The game follows the player in their mission to accumulate enough mass to become several

astronomical object An astronomical object, celestial object, stellar object or heavenly body is a naturally occurring physical entity, association, or structure that exists within the observable universe. In astronomy, the terms ''object'' and ''body'' are of ...

s, eventually becoming a

Big Crunch The Big Crunch is a hypothetical scenario for the ultimate fate of the universe, in which the expansion of the universe eventually reverses and the universe recollapses, ultimately causing the cosmic scale factor to reach absolute zero, an eve ...

, which then produces a

Big Bang The Big Bang is a physical theory that describes how the universe expanded from an initial state of high density and temperature. Various cosmological models based on the Big Bang concept explain a broad range of phenomena, including th ...

. The game is a sequel to ''Solar'' (2009), and features most of the same key gameplay elements of its predecessor, expanded and polished considerably. It was developed over ten months and includes a score composed by sound designer and musician JP Neufeld. Solar 2 received mainly positive reviews from video game journalists, scoring 72 out of 100 on aggregate website

Metacritic Metacritic is an American website that aggregates reviews of films, television shows, music albums, video games, and formerly books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created ...

. It was awarded the first prize at the 2011 Microsoft

Dream Build Play Dream Build Play (also known as Dream-Build-Play, Dream.Build.Play, and DreamBuildPlay) is an annual $75,000 Microsoft video game contest used to promote Microsoft XNA Game Studio and eventually Xbox LIVE Indie Games. It was announced in 2006, sta ...

competition, and was among the video games showcased at the 10th

Penny Arcade Expo PAX (originally known as Penny Arcade Expo) is a series of gaming culture festivals involving tabletop, arcade, and video gaming. PAX is held annually in Seattle, Boston, Philadelphia, and Melbourne. Previously, it was also held in San Anton ...

Gameplay

''Solar 2'' is an

played from a two-dimensional perspective. The player is given an asteroid, and their main mission is to accumulate enough mass to become several

s. The game ends when and if the player manages to accumulate enough mass to become a

, which then produces a

. However, the player is free to not finish the game, and is able to stay at the form of the object of their preference. Eight different objects are available in the game: asteroid, small planet, life planet, small star, medium star, large star, neutron star and

black hole A black hole is a massive, compact astronomical object so dense that its gravity prevents anything from escaping, even light. Albert Einstein's theory of general relativity predicts that a sufficiently compact mass will form a black hole. Th ...

.Watts, Jay. ''Solar 2'' (tutorial). Murudai. 2011. The game takes place in a borderless and randomly generated universe, filled with asteroids, planets, stars and

planetary system A planetary system is a set of gravity, gravitationally bound non-stellar Astronomical object, bodies in or out of orbit around a star or star system. Generally speaking, systems with one or more planets constitute a planetary system, although ...

s. Life forms are also present in the game. They appear on planets sufficiently big to store life, and are represented by a variety of ships of different size and attack power. Spaceships are coloured green if they belong to the player's planet, or to a planet that belongs to the player's planetary system; red if they belong to an enemy planet or planetary system; and white if they don't belong to any planet or system. All the spaceships in the map are controlled by the game's

artificial intelligence Artificial intelligence (AI) is the capability of computer, computational systems to perform tasks typically associated with human intelligence, such as learning, reasoning, problem-solving, perception, and decision-making. It is a field of re ...

(AI), and they will constantly engage in combat against enemy ships, asteroids or planets to destroy them. At the beginning of the game, the player accumulates mass by colliding their asteroid against other asteroids until enough mass has been gathered to become a small planet. From there, the player has to absorb other asteroids to make their planet grow enough to become a life planet; crashing against other objects will decrease the player's mass. At this point, life forms will evolve in the planet, creating spaceships, planetary shields and cannons. If the player wishes, they can accumulate more mass until their planet becomes a star. Life forms will disappear, but the player is able to attract planets to form a planetary system, further grow the star by absorbing other planets, or a combination of both. The player can also create multi-star systems by selecting planets from their system and make them absorb asteroids until they become another star. Growing the star will increase its gravitational force, which increases the number of planets the planetary system can have. They are also able to attract planetary systems composed of stars with lower mass than that of the player, or being attracted to stars with bigger mass. If both stars collide, they will be reduced to a lesser size within the same type of object. For example, if the player controls a small star and collides against a medium star, the player will be disintegrated while the AI-controlled star will be reduced to a small star. Being reduced from a small star to a life planet is not possible, as well as being reduced from a small planet to an asteroid. In these cases, the player is respawned, with random mass, close to the place where they collided. ''Solar 2'' also includes a variety of achievements and object-oriented missions that can be played at any time. Missions can be found following the directional arrows in the interface, and the AI keeps track of which missions the player has finished. The game also keeps record of several accomplishments the player has reached, such as the distance travelled, the number of objects and enemies destroyed by the player or the spaceships belonging to the player. ''Solar 2'' allows the player to save progress at any point. A "save system" feature is also present; it allows the player to save specific configurations of stars and planets that the player has created. The player can respawn from them at any time.

Development

''Solar 2'' was developed by Jay Watts under his video game studio Murudai. Watts, who received a degree in biotechnology from an Australian college, had no previous knowledge of video game development prior to coding ''Solar 2'' predecessor, ''Solar'', for the Xbox 360. Development of ''Solar'' started in July 2008 as a

Flash game A browser game is a video game that is played on the internet using a web browser. They are sometimes referred to more specifically by their format, such as Flash games or HTML5 games. They are generally free-to-play and can be either single-play ...

. Many of the key gameplay elements featured in the sequel, such as the infinite sandbox, were envisioned during this timespan. In an interview with FleshEatingZipper, Watts revealed that

Thatgamecompany Thatgamecompany, Inc. (stylized as thatgamecompany) is an American independent video game development company founded by University of Southern California students Jenova Chen and Kellee Santiago in 2006. The company was a developer for Sony ...

's indie game flOw was an inspiration for him: "I loved the simplicity of the game and the ambiance." ''Solar'', released in 2009, became a commercial success; it sold 30,000 copies and allowed Watts to work full-time on its sequel. Development of ''Solar 2'' lasted for at least ten months. The game was developed using

Microsoft XNA Microsoft XNA (a recursive acronym for XNA's not acronymed) is a freeware set of tools with a Managed code, managed Runtime system, runtime environment that Microsoft Gaming developed to facilitate video game game development, development. XNA is ...

, a set of tools focused on video game development created by

Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company, technology conglomerate headquartered in Redmond, Washington. Founded in 1975, the company became influential in the History of personal computers#The ear ...

. According to Watts, ''Solar 2'' was "mainly expanding on 'Solar''original idea and polishing it to perfection." However, he commented that the concept of both games took several design iterations to reach its final version: "I played with many, many ideas before finally settling on what I have now." Sound designer and musician JP Neufeld composed the game's score. According to Watts, this was done because there was "no way I could do music as good as he can." Both the Windows and Xbox 360 versions of the game were developed simultaneously. About the Xbox 360 version, Watts commented that "the lack of keyboards and the aging Xbox 360 hardware were a bit tricky, and updating the Xbox version is a huge pain to do."

Release

''Solar 2'' was released on 17 June 2011 on

for Microsoft Windows and on 19 June 2011 on

for the Xbox 360. In July 2012, Watts announced that he was working on

Mac OS X macOS, previously OS X and originally Mac OS X, is a Unix, Unix-based operating system developed and marketed by Apple Inc., Apple since 2001. It is the current operating system for Apple's Mac (computer), Mac computers. With ...

and Linux versions of the game. However, given that the original game was developed using the Windows-only XNA platform, he expected the ports to be ready sometime before the end of the year. In October 2012, the Mac port was announced and released on Steam. The

iPad The iPad is a brand of tablet computers developed and marketed by Apple Inc., Apple that run the company's mobile operating systems iOS and later iPadOS. The IPad (1st generation), first-generation iPad was introduced on January 27, 2010. ...

version of the game was released in March 2013. An Android version was also made available in March 2013.

Reception

''Solar 2'' received a positive response from video game journalists upon release. At

, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the game received an average score of 72 based on 8 reviews. Most critics praised the physics-based gameplay and soundtrack, but criticized the exceedingly difficult missions and somewhat repetitive gameplay. However, the game won the

US$ The United States dollar (Currency symbol, symbol: Dollar sign, $; ISO 4217, currency code: USD) is the official currency of the United States and International use of the U.S. dollar, several other countries. The Coinage Act of 1792 introdu ...

20,000 first prize at the 2011 Microsoft Dream Build Play competition, and became a finalist at the 2011 IndieCade festival. ''Solar 2'' was also among the ten indie video games showcased at the 10th

, held in August 2011.

IGN ''IGN'' is an American video gaming and entertainment media website operated by IGN Entertainment Inc., a subsidiary of Ziff Davis, Inc. The company's headquarters is located in San Francisco's SoMa district and is headed by its former e ...

's Gord Goble criticized the difficulty of the missions but praised the game's soundtrack, which he called a combination of "new age-meets-

Alan Parsons Project Alan may refer to: People *Alan (surname), an English and Kurdish surname *Alan (given name), an English given name ** List of people with given name Alan ''Following are people commonly referred to solely by "Alan" or by a homonymous name.'' * ...

-meets-

Pink Floyd Pink Floyd are an English Rock music, rock band formed in London in 1965. Gaining an early following as one of the first British psychedelic music, psychedelic groups, they were distinguished by their extended compositions, sonic experiments ...

-meets-''2001: A Space Odyssey'' audioscape." He also highlighted several features he would have liked to see in the game, such as a more complex universe to explore and the ability to control the life forms in the planets controlled by the player. Graham Smith from ''

PC Gamer ''PC Gamer'' is a magazine and website founded in the United Kingdom in 1993 devoted to PC gaming and published monthly by Future plc. The magazine has several regional editions, with the UK and US editions becoming the best selling PC games m ...

'' was also critical of the missions' difficulty, although concluded that it was "a good price for a universe." ''

GamePro ''GamePro'' was an American multiplatform video game magazine media company that published online and print content covering the video game industry, video game hardware and video game software. The magazine featured content on various video ...

'' Nate Ralph mentioned the life forms as the only negative aspect of the game. The iPad and Android versions of ''Solar 2'' were also well received. App Spy's Andrew Nesvadba, on his review of the iPad version of the game, highlighted the overall sense that "nothing about the game feels like a waste of time or effort," but criticized the lack of control over the life forms. Meanwhile, Andrew Martonik from Android Central acknowledged that ''Solar 2'' had all the elements necessary for a great game.

References

{{Reflist, 2, refs= {{cite web, last=Watts, first=Jay, title=Solar 2 now available on iPad!, url=http://murudai.com/2013/02/solar-2-now-available-on-ipad/, publisher=Murudai, access-date=9 April 2014, date=11 February 2013 {{cite web, last=Watts, first=Jay, title=Solar 2 Available Now on Mac!, url=http://murudai.com/2012/10/solar-2-available-now-on-mac/, publisher=Murudai, access-date=9 April 2014, date=23 October 2012 {{cite web, last=Watts, first=Jay, title=Update July 2012 – What's Next, url=http://murudai.com/2012/07/update-july-2012-whats-next/, publisher=Murudai, access-date=9 April 2014, date=16 July 2012 {{cite web, title=FEZ Interviews: Jay Watts, Developer of Solar 2!, url=http://www.flesheatingzipper.com/gaming/2011/06/fez-interviews-jay-watts-developer-of-solar-2-2/, publisher=FleshEatingZipper, access-date=9 April 2014, date=22 June 2011 {{cite web, last=PJ, title=Featured Indie Dev: Jay Watts gets intergalactic with Solar 2, url=http://www.indiepubgames.com/news/jay_watts_murudai_solar_2_featured_indie_dev, publisher=Indie Pub, access-date=9 April 2014, archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130615072533/http://www.indiepubgames.com/news/jay_watts_murudai_solar_2_featured_indie_dev, archive-date=15 June 2013, date=1 June 2011 {{cite web , url= http://uk.ign.com/articles/2011/07/14/solar-2-review , title= Solar 2 Review , date= 14 July 2011 , access-date= 29 June 2013 , work=

, publisher=

Ziff Davis Media Ziff Davis, Inc. is an American digital media and internet company. Founded in 1927 by William Bernard Ziff Sr. and Bernard George Davis, the company primarily owns technology- and health-oriented media websites, online shopping-related services ...

{{cite web , url= http://www.dealspwn.com/solar-2-developer-interview-jay-watts-67064 , title= Solar 2 Developer Interview - Jay Watts , date= 29 June 2011 , access-date= 29 June 2013 , last= Clark , first= Josh , publisher= Dealspwn , archive-date= 29 November 2018 , archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20181129022752/http://www.dealspwn.com/solar-2-developer-interview-jay-watts-67064 , url-status= dead {{Cite web , url= http://www.androidcentral.com/reviewing-humble-bundle-5-solar-2 , title= Reviewing Humble Bundle 5: Solar 2 , date= 8 March 2013 , access-date= 1 July 2013 , publisher= Android Central , first= Andrew , last= Martonik {{cite web , url= http://www.joystiq.com/2011/08/28/congratulations-to-the-2011-dream-build-play-winners/ , title= Congratulations to the 2011 Dream Build Play winners! , date= 28 August 2011 , access-date= 29 June 2013 , work=

Joystiq ''Joystiq'' was a video gaming blog which was part of the Weblogs, Inc. family later owned by AOL. It was active from 2004 to 2015, acting as the primary video game blog for the group, and operating alongside ''Engadget'' and sister blogs such ...

, first= Jessica , last= Conditt {{cite web , url= http://www.edge-online.com/news/indiecade-finalists-announced/ , title= IndieCade finalists announced , date= 16 September 2011 , first= Nathan , last= Brown , website= Edge , access-date= 29 June 2013 {{cite web , url= http://indiegames.com/2011/07/indie_selections_for_2011_pax_.html , title= Indie Selections For 2011 'PAX 10' Showcase Announced , date= 9 July 2011 , access-date= 2 July 2013 , work= IndieGames.com , first= Tim , last= W. , archive-date= 9 July 2011 , archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20110709164015/http://indiegames.com/2011/07/indie_selections_for_2011_pax_.html , url-status= dead {{cite web , url= https://www.metacritic.com/game/solar-2/critic-reviews/?platform=pc , title= Solar 2 for PC Reviews, access-date= 29 June 2013, work=

, publisher=

CBS Interactive Paramount Streaming (formerly CBS Digital Media, CBS Interactive, and ViacomCBS Streaming) is a division of Paramount Global that oversees the company's video streaming technology and direct-to-consumer services; including Pluto TV and Paramo ...

{{cite web , url=http://www.pcgamer.com/review/solar-2-review/ , title= Solar 2 review , work=

, date= 14 August 2011 , access-date= 29 June 2013 , first= Graham , last= Smith {{cite magazine , url= http://www.gamepro.com/article/reviews/221143/review-solar-2-pc/ , archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20111129051812/http://www.gamepro.com/article/reviews/221143/review-solar-2-pc/ , title= Review: Solar 2 (PC) , date= 14 July 2011 , archive-date= 29 November 2011 , magazine=

, first= Nate , last= Ralph , publisher= IDG {{Cite web , url= http://www.appspy.com/review/6714/solar-2 , title= Solar 2 iPad Review , date= 13 February 2013 , access-date= 2 July 2013 , work= App Spy , first= Andrew , last= Nesvadba 2011 video games Android (operating system) games Indie games IOS games Linux games MacOS games Microsoft XNA games Open-world video games Single-player video games Video games developed in Australia Windows games Xbox 360 Live Indie games Video game sequels