We’re used to games cheating everything, so why on Earth would Outer Wilds bother to actually physically simulate planetary gravity, especially since it’s designed to run on a mere Xbox?īut this exhibit is one of Outer Wilds’ attempts to show the physics realism of its solar system, a design decision which, of course, led to many challenges for its developer, Mobius Digital. I have to admit, I didn’t believe it when I first saw these balls. “Actually, if you jump while the moon is above, and you’ll jump quite a bit higher,” adds designer and producer Loan Verneau. “The balls are being affected by the moon’s gravity!” says Beachum. “As it orbits our planet, the Attlerock’s gravity pulls on objects from different directions. “What do you think causes their spooky motion?” asks a placard before revealing the answer: the moon.
If you’ve played Outer Wilds, you’ll remember that at the Observatory there’s an exhibit consisting of a low table and three gently rolling metallic balls. Outer Wilds is a game in which epic-scale events happen on a minute-by-minute basis, and Brittle Hollow was its greatest test. “Brittle Hollow was the last place we finalised, for what are probably obvious reasons.” He and his team had to get an entire planet to fall apart, perhaps while players are standing on it, and perhaps if they’re tearing through space on the the other side of the system. “That place is ridiculous,” Outer Wilds creative director Alex Beachum tells me. And also, up until that apocalypse, Brittle Hollow will also endure constant bombardment by meteors, which will smash away great crystalline chunks of its frigid surface, so that they fall away into the black hole at the planet’s centre. For a start, in about 22 minutes’ time, it’s going to be destroyed, along with the rest of Outer Wilds’ solar system. This is The Mechanic, where Alex Wiltshire invites developers to discuss the difficult journeys they’ve taken to make their games.
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