VEKTA started as an experiment - I wanted to try out Processing as a way to create art through code, and the first project I thought of was to create a simple “solar system” physics sandbox with vector graphics. I’ve always loved how the arcade game Asteroids looked, and I wanted to replicate that.

After completing this simple task, I thought “why not add a little ship you can fly around?” This, of course, was the initial domino fall triggering one of the wildest scope creeps ever recorded.

Three years and one incredibly skilled collaborator later, we had built a universe simulator. While I’m not going to tell you this is Dwarf Fortress scale, VEKTA includes creatures living on life-viable planets, evolving to fit their environments. It has realistic ship temperature simulations influenced by star proximity. There are people to talk to, pirates to fight, and an infinite chaotic universe to explore. Stars explode, planets combine. All of this on an engine constructed by us, tightly integrated with the game itself.

Despite all of that — and despite it being one of the most rewarding projects I’ve ever worked on, to this day — I will readily admit… It’s not very fun. Sure, there are some things to do, but ultimately the difficulty and power scaling of the game is way off. You can improve your ship, but it’s very easy to get new parts and there’s no challenge there. The real challenge comes from fighting with the physics of the sandbox. It’s genuinely challenging to put your ship into orbit, far more than it is to fight off pirates!

I think VEKTA has a lot of potential. If I went back and made some changes, the fun could be unearthed. However, I haven’t written a line of Java since I stopped working on this game, and that kind of scares me.