Retrospective
Universe Sandbox 2023 Retrospective
Jan 24th
We’ve got a lot planned for 2024, including a massive graphics upgrade, collision and cratering improvements, getting Universe Sandbox on mobile devices (iOS & Android), and more! We’ll go into more exciting details in our upcoming 2024 Roadmap post, but first, let’s reflect on some achievements from 2023.
1
Spherical Cow
We added one new human-scale object last year – a spherical cow. A spherical cow refers to a joke that when physicists want to make a problem easier to handle, they sometimes simplify it so much it’s no longer realistic.
4
Significant updates to Universe Sandbox
- A Comet, an Asteroid, and a Planet Walk into the Solar System | Update 32.2 | March 2023
- Added a spherical cow and many simulations including the green comet C/2022 E3 (ZTF) passing by Earth.
- Grand Collision Unification | Update 32.3 | June 2023
- Combined our two previous collision models for more realistic shockwaves, heating, and overall destruction.
- Gravity Simulation Upgrade | Update 33 | August 2023
- Overhauled our gravity simulation to increase accuracy, stability, and performance to run simulations even faster.
- Terraforming | Update 34 | December 2023
- Added 8 new materials (for a total of 12), including oxygen and carbon dioxide, to realistically simulate, construct, and terraform planets and atmospheres.
- Finally simulating the lakes of liquid methane on Titan.
The Gravity Simulation Upgrade and Terraforming were major milestones from our 2023 Roadmap post.
8
New materials
We added
- Helium
- Carbon dioxide
- Oxygen
- Sulfur dioxide
- Methane
- Nitrogen
- Argon
- Ammonia
Alongside the existing materials, silicate, iron, hydrogen, and water to Universe Sandbox. Now you can terraform planets and simulate atmospheres more realistically than ever.
36
New simulations and guides added to Universe Sandbox
Check out the 31 new simulations, including the Bombard Moon with Materials (below), and 5 new guides, including Terraforming Mars and Searching for Supermassive Black Holes, under
Home > Open
and
Home > Guides
727
Highest number of concurrent users in Universe Sandbox
Easily surpassing the previous highest number of 648 on December 24, 2021. January 30, 2023 must have been a great day to cause celestial havoc.
2,336
Positive Steam reviews in 2023
We’re truly amazed and humbled that we are rated “Overwhelmingly Positive,” both recently and all-time on Steam. Over 96% of all reviews we’ve received are positive.
2,405
New code commits, or changes, made to Universe Sandbox through GitHub, the platform we use to maintain and manage our code
The most code commits occurred during the week of December 3, right before Terraforming | Update 34 was released, with 87 commits. A single commit can be a simple typo correction or a whole new feature
9,757
Discord users on our server
It’s great to see your constructive discussion and creations on our server, which has grown by almost 20% in the last year. 10,000 is so close, let’s hit 12,000 this year! Join us on Discord.
15,747
Simulations shared in the Universe Sandbox Steam Workshop in 2023
That’s more than 43 simulations shared every single day! There are over 50,000 total simulations shared on the Steam Workshop for you to explore and be inspired by.
25,326
Files uploaded on our team messaging app, Slack, in 2023
That’s more than 3 times as many as last year, including screenshots and videos of features in progress, log files for resolving issues, and images of bugs, like those below.
56,466
Messages sent on Slack in 2023
Giant Army has been entirely remote since its founding in 2011, and with 13 team members across 4 continents and 6 time zones, messaging on Slack is how we get most of our work done.
592,638*
Times the ‘Welcome to Universe Sandbox’ guide was played in 2023
Whether you’re a new player or just wanted a refresher, we hope you enjoyed learning about the beauty of our universe. And how to destroy it.
1,005,262*
Times the Planetscaping tool was used in 2023
The Planetscaping tool became even more powerful with the ability to add individual materials. Seeing the passion and attention to detail you all put into customizing planets is fantastic.
1,380,778*
Times supernovas went off in Universe Sandbox in 2023
Astronomers estimate there will be 1 supernova in the Milky Way every 100 years. They also think there are about 100 billion galaxies in the universe. Assuming all galaxies have a similar number of supernovas, about a billion occur each year.
We got about 1% of the way there in 2023. Turns out that even with everybody working together, recreating everything happening in the universe is hard.
6,265,426*
New simulations created in Universe Sandbox in 2023
That’s about one new simulation created every 5 seconds.
31,394,000+
Views of Universe Sandbox videos and shorts on YouTube
Getting an exact view count of every YouTube video that featured Universe Sandbox in 2023 is almost impossible, but we think this is a reasonable estimate (the actual number is larger). We appreciate every video posted and are glad so many people enjoy them!
Check out two of our most prolific YouTubers, Space Chip and Neptunian Guy.
* Due to a change in our analytics system, we have extrapolated 2023’s numbers based on the total increase in player activity on Steam.
What’s Next?
We’re already working on a major graphics upgrade, getting Universe Sandbox on mobile devices (iOS and Android), overhauling the framework that Universe Sandbox is built on, and more! Be on the lookout for more details in our 2024 Roadmap post.
And Most Importantly
Thank you. All of your kind words, feedback, and excitement inspire us to continue our mission of creating a realistic, interactive simulation of the amazing universe we find ourselves in. We believe that giving people the power of unlimited creation and destruction is the best way to discover its awesomeness.
We’re able to keep improving Universe Sandbox year after year because of your support, and we are truly grateful. There is so much more we want to bring to Universe Sandbox, and we can’t wait to do it.
The Universe Sandbox Team
Dan, Chris, Georg, Jonathan, Rappo, Mat, Jacob, Erika, Brendan, Anders, Brent, Pavel, and Conrad
Universe Sandbox 2022 Retrospective
Mar 2nd
We’re excited about our plans for 2023, including adding more materials to planets as well as improvements for our physics simulation, but we’ll dive into our roadmap in an upcoming post. First, let’s reflect on some of our accomplishments from 2022.
1
New team member
Last year, Conrad joined the team as our User Interface Engineer. Since then, Conrad has been adding interface controls for object customization, fixing general usability issues, and helping to make our user interface easy to use on small screens in preparation for Universe Sandbox on mobile.
8
New guides and fly-by simulations added to Universe Sandbox in 2022
We added new guides on object customization and a simulation of NASA’s DART mission. This ambitious mission tested humanity’s ability to deflect asteroids away from Earth by intentionally crashing a satellite into an asteroid and accurately predicting the change in the asteroid’s orbital period.
9
Significant updates to Universe Sandbox
- Consistent Collisions, James Webb, & Planetscaping Tweaks | Update 29.1
- JWST is now in Universe Sandbox, and there’s an eyedropper for the Planetscaping tool
- Hit Hard, Spin Fast | Update 30
- The new Force Spin tool allows you to spin apart planets with the newly implemented centrifugal force
- Collisions between spinning and equal-size objects are more realistic than ever before
- The habitable zone is now simulated using the selected planet’s properties, and the Hubble Space Telescope is now in Universe Sandbox
- Constellations | Update 31
- Explore constellations for 10 different cultures
- Object glows now correspond to how hot an object is
- A Warmer Welcome | Update 31.1
- Our welcome guides have been overhauled so you can discover the infinite power to create and destroy in Universe Sandbox
- Upgrading Our Engine | Update 31.2
- We updated Unity, the game engine we use to create Universe Sandbox, to allow us to utilize new features for future improvements
- Instantly see where water will flow on a planet with the new Settle Water button
- Planetary Defense DART | Update 31.3
- Many collision improvements and a simulation of NASA’s DART mission, which intentionally collided the DART spacecraft with the asteroid Dimorphos, changing its orbit & testing humanity’s ability to protect Earth from future asteroids
- Space is Big | Update 31.4
- Units of measurement have been updated to help you better understand the vastness of space
- Build-A-Planet | Update 32
- Customize and manipulate the appearance and elevation of planets using any of the in-game visual and elevation maps
- Skies of Blue, Red Collisions Too | Update 32.1
- Collision shockwaves are now more realistic, and we added basic Rayleigh scattering to atmospheres
- The simulation speed can automatically adjust itself based on various conditions, like nearby objects and collisions, by turning on Automatic Simulation Speed
View our “What’s New” for a chronological list of changes.
31
Preview versions uploaded in 2022
Your playtesting of our preview versions (previously called community test builds) gives us valuable feedback for improving features in active development. A huge thanks to our wonderful community for all their help.
571
Highest number of concurrent users in Universe Sandbox in 2022
The highest number of concurrent users we’ve ever had was almost in 2022: 648 on December 24, 2021. We’ve already beaten the highest number this year, but you’ll need to wait for the next retrospective to see it.
1,801
Positive Steam reviews in 2022
We’re truly humbled that we are still rated “Overwhelmingly Positive,” both recent and all-time on Steam (over 96% of reviews are positive). Your support and feedback are truly appreciated and help make Universe Sandbox even better.
1,862
Code commits, or changes, made to the Universe Sandbox project in 2022
The most code commits occurred during the week of May 8, when 65 commits were made. While a single commit can be as small as fixing a typo, some of them have been whole new features.
7,735
Files uploaded on our team messaging app
These are files we share with each other via Slack and include screenshots and videos of features in progress, log files for resolving issues, and astronomy jokes.
8,151
Discord users on our server at the end of 2022
It’s great to see your creations and constructive discussion on our server, which has grown by over 22.5% in the last year. Join us on Discord.
9,253
Simulations shared in the Universe Sandbox Steam Workshop in 2022
That’s more than 25 simulations shared every single day! You all continue to use Universe Sandbox in ways we could never have imagined, and we can’t wait to see what you make next.
74,257
Messages sent on our team messaging app
Giant Army has been entirely remote since its founding in 2011, and with 13 team members across 3 continents and 6 time zones, messaging on Slack is how we get most of our work done.
537,209
Times the Welcome to Universe Sandbox guide was played
Whether you’re a new player or just wanted to check out the reimagined welcome guides we released last year, we hope you enjoyed learning about the beauty of our universe. You’re using that knowledge responsibly, right?
911,241
Times the Planetscaping tool was used in 2022
Letting you shape and customize planets is integral to the spirit of Universe Sandbox, and we’re glad you’re experimenting with the power that comes with it.
1,251,635
Times supernovas went off in Universe Sandbox in 2022
Astronomers estimate there will be 1 supernova in the Milky Way every 100 years. They also think there are about 100 billion galaxies in the universe. Assuming all galaxies have a similar number of supernovas to ours, there are about a billion supernovas in the universe each year. We got about 0.1%* of the way there in 2022. Let’s see if we can get closer in 2023!
*Thanks to Steam user Nantes for pointing out that the original value of 1% was wrong, and this should be 0.1%
2,007,301
Times the top played simulations of 2022 were opened*
The top 10 sims of 2022 were:
| Rank | Simulation Name | Times Opened |
| 10 | Saturn with Rings | 129,522 |
| 9 | Voyager 1 & Jupiter in 1979 | 130,275 |
| 8 | Solar System – Just Planets | 136,798 |
| 7 | Milky Way & Andromeda Galaxy Collision | 145,261 |
| 6 | Earth & 100 Colliding Moons | 171,990 |
| 5 | Earth & Moon | 173,774 |
| 4 | Tidally Locked Earth | 177,224 |
| 3 | Milky Way | 189,958 |
| 2 | Galaxy Collision Hi-res | 227,148 |
| 1 | Solar System – Live View – Planets, Moons, Spacecraft | 525,351 |
*not including creating a new simulation or the Solar System simulation that opens when you start Universe Sandbox
Check them out to see what all the fuss is about!
3,987,005
Times the Force tool was used in 2022
Whether you were giving planets a gentle nudge, slightly adjusting their rotation, or spinning them apart, we know you were forceful in your efforts.
6,265,426
New simulations were created in Universe Sandbox in 2022
That’s about the same number as last year, with a new simulation created every 5 seconds.
35,802,793
Times a simulation was played or paused in 2022
By far the most popular thing to do in Universe Sandbox in 2022 was to play or pause a simulation. That’s about once every second.
What’s Next?
More materials for building planets and their atmospheres, physics simulation performance improvements, non-star objects emitting light based on their temperature, and more are in store for 2023. Be on the lookout for our 2023 Roadmap, which will have more details about our plans for this year.
And Most Importantly…
Thank you. Your continued encouragement and support let us keep simulating the universe more realistically year after year. We are so grateful for your suggestions, feedback, and kind words. The simulations you create continue to impress us, and we want to continue improving Universe Sandbox to expand your creative (and destructive) capabilities. There’s so much to do, and we can’t wait to do it!
The Universe Sandbox Team
Dan, Chris, Georg, Jonathan, Rappo, Mat, Jacob, Erika, Brendan, Anders, Brent, Pavel, and Conrad
Universe Sandbox 2021 Retrospective
Feb 17th
With a new year comes many exciting new developments for Universe Sandbox! We’re already hard at work on some of our planned features for 2022, but we wanted to celebrate and reflect on all that we accomplished in the past year.
2
New team members
Brent was introduced in our 2021 Roadmap and was hired as our new Science Writer & Community Advocate in March 2021. Brent has a Ph.D. in Physics and has been writing about all of the awesome science and simulations that Universe Sandbox can do (including writing this post – Hi again, everybody 🙂 ).
In October 2021, Pavel was brought on as a Physics Engineer to work on all things collisions with Erika, Chris, and Anders. Pavel has a Ph.D. in Astrophysics and did his graduate research on impact simulations, using smoothed-particle hydrodynamics and N-body simulations, mostly focusing on the formation of asteroid families. He’s been hard at work improving our collision system, and we’re excited to have him on the team.
8
Significant updates to Universe Sandbox
These encompass over 56 new additions and over 219 bug fixes and improvements! We also started adding screenshots and gifs to show off the new features in each update this year.
- Splish, Splash, Filling a Bath | Update 26.3 | February 24, 2021
- Fast & Flurrious | Update 27 | May 3, 2021
- Clouds in Motion | Update 27.1 | June 21, 2021
- Atmospheric Adjustments | Update 27.2 | August 2, 2021
- Codename: Fire Ring | Update 28 | September 23, 2021
- My Eyes, the Space Goggles Do Nothing | Update 28.1 | October 28, 2021
- Starlite Starbrite | Update 28.2 | November 23, 2021
- Planetscaping | Update 29 | December 22, 2021
10
New guides and fly-by simulations added to Universe Sandbox in 2021
We hope you’ve enjoyed learning about all the new features we added in the last year. We’re planning to add even more guides and spacecraft simulations this coming year.
120
Tweets over the course of 2021
All of our tweets combined had a total of 361,300 views. Follow us on Twitter to get the latest news about Universe Sandbox.
648
Highest number of concurrent users in Universe Sandbox in 2021
This is the all-time high for the number of concurrent users and occurred on December 24, 2021! The second-highest number is 646 from the end of December 2020.
2,183
Code commits, or changes, made to the Universe Sandbox project in 2021
The most in one week were 102 commits made the week of April 25. This is about the same number of commits as we made in 2019.
2,246
Positive Steam reviews in 2021
Being Overwhelming Positive, recent and all time, has really overwhelmed us in the best way. Thank you all for your support and kindness over the last few years. We couldn’t do this without you.
6,082
Discord users in our server at the end of 2021
We’re already up to over 6600 since the start of 2022! Join us on Discord.
10,828
Shared items in the Universe Sandbox Steam Workshop
While slightly less than in 2019, this is truly an impressive number of creations from the community. Keep up the good work, we can’t wait to see what you all make next!
35,963
Times the Planetscaping tool was used since it was released at the end of December 2021
We’re so glad you’ve all been enjoying shaping planets to your whims.
46,929
In-game feedback reports we received this year
We appreciate you sharing your feedback with us as we work to make Universe Sandbox the best that it can be.
97,345
Messages sent on Slack (the instant messaging platform we use to communicate)
While Slack has become more popular for remote work over the last 2 years, Giant Army has been remote since its founding in 2011. We have 13 team members across 3 continents and 5 time zones, so messaging on Slack is how we get most of our work done.
158,908
Times the Galactic Empire Superlaser was used in 2021
We’re sure that none of you had malicious intent when using this laser. It was for science right? Right?
240,181
Random Rocky Planets were created in Universe Sandbox in 2021
We’re glad that you’ve enjoyed using these planets as a base for making your own habitable planets or causing epic celestial destruction.
399,650
Times our 13 blog posts from 2021 were read on Steam
The most-read post was our patch notes from Planetscaping | Update 29 with 45,933 reads.
4,878,285
Times Universe Sandbox was opened in 2021
That’s roughly once every 6.5 seconds!
6,921,033
New simulations were created in Universe Sandbox this past year
You all create so many amazing things it’s no wonder that there’s a new simulation created every 4.5 seconds.
8,990,138
Views on the top 4 most viewed YouTube videos about Universe Sandbox this year
We’re humbled that GrayStillPlays is still making these videos after all this time.
8,994,616,623
Seconds played in Universe Sandbox among all of you in 2021
That’s 285 collective years! We know you have a choice when it comes to where to spend your free time and we’d like to thank you for spending it in Universe Sandbox.
What’s Next?
There’s so much we want to do in 2022, from finishing up some features we’ve been working on for a while, like rigid body physics and improving our Planetscaping tools, to new features like constellations and multiple materials. And that’s just beginning to scratch the surface.
We’re also planning a big push on mobile development and hoping to start console development this year. Keep an eye out for our 2022 Roadmap which we hope to share soon.
And Most Importantly…
Thank you. We wouldn’t be able to do this without all of your support and help. You all do amazing things with Universe Sandbox that we never could have imagined and that makes us so excited for its future. So whether you’ve been playing Universe Sandbox for 6 minutes or 6 years, thank you. We can’t wait to see how much Universe Sandbox is in another 6 years because of all of you.
The Universe Sandbox Team
Dan, Chris, Georg, Jonathan, Rappo, Mat, Jacob, Erika, Brendan, Anders, Brent, and Pavel
Universe Sandbox 2019 Retrospective
Feb 25th
While there’s a lot to look forward to in 2020, we’re going to take a moment to celebrate the milestones we reached this past year.
1
New team member.
Brendan is a graphics developer from Australia and is joining Georg in making everything in the universe beautiful, awesome, and graphically performant. He’s already worked on improving random planet generation, fixing black hole issues on the Magic Leap, and is now creating visuals for our experimental liquid planets project, AKA smoothed-particle hydrodynamics (SPH).
2
Number of full-time developers on a new platform.
Magic Leap 1! We started a new journey into augmented reality in 2019 and we’re really proud of the work we’ve done to bring the full power of Universe Sandbox to Magic Leap as an undiluted experience. Dave and Jacob focused most of the year on Magic Leap with support from the rest of the team.
Universe Sandbox creator & director, Dan Dixon, working on Magic Leap with developer Dave Nelson.
4
New human-sized objects.
- banana
- watermelon
- sword
- sledgehammer
Everything you need to make a very bad fruit salad.
7
Significant updates to Universe Sandbox.
- Revamped Vapor & Engine Experiments | Update 22.2 | April 10, 2019
- A Big Day for Physics | Update 22.3 | May 30, 2019
- Beyond the Milky Way | Update 23 | June 25, 2019
- Galactic Clean-Up | Update 23.1 | August 20, 2019
- Saturn’s New Moons | Update 23.2 | November 01, 2019
- Surface Grids & Lasers | Update 24 | November 22, 2019
- The Color in Space | Update 24.1 | December 19, 2019
This year had a mix of improving existing content and rolling out new features. While there were fewer objects added, several key systems got revamped (see Surface Grids), setting the team up for exciting additions in the coming year.
Image provided by Discord user Mangolia.
28
# of languages we now support, up from 22 last year.
A big thanks to our community for helping with our crowdsourced translation efforts! Want to help translate Universe Sandbox into your native language? Learn more.
| Bulgarian | Chinese Simplified | Chinese Traditional | Czech | Danish |
| Dutch | English | Filipino | Finnish | French |
| German | Greek | Hungarian | Indonesian | Italian |
| Japanese | Korean | Norwegian | Polish | Portuguese |
| Romanian | Russian | Spanish | Swedish | Thai |
| Turkish | Ukrainian | Vietnamese |
601
Highest number of concurrent users in Universe Sandbox in 2019.
This is higher than in 2018, and second only to our all-time high of 617 players in March of 2016, during our first big Steam sale.
1,963
# of users in our Discord server.
2,124
# of positive Steam reviews in 2019.
Seeing so much love for Universe Sandbox warms our hearts the way gravitational squishing heats Io.
Overwhelmingly Positive reviews. Wow!
2403
# of code commits (changes) made to the Universe Sandbox project in 2019.
A look at our GitHub commits activity since 2015. The gray section shows 2019.
14,893
# of shared items in the Universe Sandbox Steam Workshop.
This is over six times as many as 2018! We can’t wait to see how this library of community creations grows in the coming year! To get through all of them in 2020, you’d have to check out slightly more than 40 per day. (Get cracking?)
103,541
# of messages sent on Slack (an instant messaging platform we use to communicate).
Giant Army is a completely remote team, with some dozen members on three continents. We also use Google Meet for our face to face video meetings but much of our work happens in text.
163,298
# of units sold on Steam.
In 2018, we sold a copy just about every five minutes. In 2019, that interval narrowed to a little under 3 minutes and 15 seconds.
474,811
Lasers equipped since our Surface Grids & Lasers release.
This is one of the stats we track using our built-in analytics.
The magic cold laser in action. Image provided by Discord user Anonymoose/BlueMarble.
8,093,789
# of views on most viewed Universe Sandbox video of the year.
We’ve been delighted to see GreyStillPlays make 26 videos featuring antics in Universe Sandbox.
10,485,760
# of individual data points we are simultaneously simulating on object surfaces.
This is our Surface Grid system, which is a foundation that we’ve been working on for years, and will enable us to skyrocket into the future with some pretty exciting features. More on that soon in the 2020 roadmap.
(with atlas resolution of 1024 × 2048 × 5 layers = 10,485,760 | higher-end computers can simulate 2048× 4096 × 5 layers = 41,943,040 points).
Vapor content on the Moon as it is bombarded by icy asteroids
What’s next?
Improvements to heat and material simulation across object surfaces, new tools, life simulation, better performance, data analysis, Magic Leap, a completely revamped VR experience, SPH – it’s hard to list it all. The foundational work we did in 2019 sets us up to do amazing things in the coming year.
Stay tuned for a 2020 roadmap, which we’ll publish next.
Thank you to everyone, to both new players and those who have been playing Universe Sandbox for years. Whether you’re analyzing orbits, creating fictional worlds, learning about astronomical material properties, or just having fun throwing planets together, we truly couldn’t do this without your continued enthusiasm for our little astronomy simulation. And we’re just getting started.
The Universe Sandbox Team
Dan, Chris, Georg, Alexander, Jonathan, Dave, Rappo, Mat, Jacob, Erika, and Brendan
2018 Retrospective
Jan 7th
Happy New Year!
Before we take a look at what’s coming to Universe Sandbox this year, let’s take a look back at our achievements in 2018, by the numbers:
1
new team member: welcome, Jules, our new sound designer!
2
the # that was dropped from the logo.
That’s right, now it’s just Universe Sandbox. We’ll have more to say about this soon!
8
# of significant updates to Universe Sandbox.
- They Put a Car in Space, We Upgraded Our Engine | Update 20.5 | March 7, 2018
- More Super Supernovae | Update 20.6 | March 15, 2018
- This Hyperbolic Update Will Change Your Life | Update 20.7 | May 24, 2018
- 20 Earth Languages & 12 Jovian Moons | Update 21 | July 19, 2018
- Windows Mixed Reality Support | Update 21.2 | August 02, 2018
- The Extremes of Our Solar System | Update 21.3 | October 04, 2018
- The Universe Just Got Bigger: Steam Workshop Support | Update 22 | November 15, 2018
- Far Out | Update 22.1 | December 20, 2018
12
# of Universe Sandbox team members that fit into one house in Spain for a week.
21
# of new simulations.
- 2 Parker Solar Probe sims
- 2 Tesla Roadster sims
- 2 sims of Jupiter’s newly discovered moons
- New Horizons Ultima Thule Encounter in 2019
- 2018 VG18: The Most Distant Object in the Solar System
- 2015 TG387: A Goblin at the Edge of the Solar System
- Voyagers 1 & 2 Start 2019 Outside the Solar System
- Ultimate Engineered System
- Solar System with No Sun
- Kepler 10
- Kepler 47 Binary System
- Alpha Centauri Triple System
- Saturn & Earth
- Retrograde Asteroid 2015 BZ509
- Interstellar Object with a Hyperbolic Trajectory
- Solar System with Betelgeuse instead of the Sun
- Conservation of Momentum lesson
- Gravitational Force lesson
This just includes the simulations that we added, though. Scroll down for a much larger number of simulations that our community has shared on Workshop!
22
# of languages now supported in Universe Sandbox.
26
# of pages of release notes for Universe Sandbox updates in 2018.
Check out What’s New.
325
# of bugs fixed.
You know what they say, fixing a bug a day keeps the QA away. Just kidding, we can’t — and don’t want to — stop our awesome QA, Mat, from hunting down bugs in Universe Sandbox.
Not all of these bug fixes were notable for releases, as there are many bugs that are discovered and fixed while we’re still doing behind-the-scenes work with improving Universe Sandbox. We look forward to squashing hundreds more this year!
479
Highest # of concurrent users in Universe Sandbox in 2018 (happened on the week of August 6).
This is the fifth highest of all time for us.
1,114
# of positive Steam reviews of Universe Sandbox written in 2018.
All this love for Universe Sandbox really warms our cold, spaceborne hearts. <3
2,420
# of simulations shared on Steam Workshop.
That means there are literally thousands of simulations featuring alien planets and systems, recently discovered exoplanets, confounding scientific phenomena, worlds from movies, books, and other video games, and of course bizarre bugs (or are they features?), created by you, the community, now shared on Steam Workshop. We look forward to seeing this treasure trove continue to grow.
7,160
# of copies of Universe Sandbox donated for charity.
This year we donated copies to StackUp for distribution to military personnel, donated proceeds to the National Center for Science Education, provided copies to schools and educational organizations, and donated copies for various fundraisers for people doing awesome things, like all the folks at CosmoQuest.
12,694
# of objects added to the Universe Sandbox database.
That’s 11,973 new Solar System objects, 387 new exoplanets, 310 new stars, 21 new moons, 2 new human-scale objects, and 1 new galaxy.
95,736
# of messages sent on Slack.
We’re a remote team, so other than some video chats and comments on GitHub, all of our conversations happen on Slack. It’s what makes our collaboration on Universe Sandbox possible!
>100,000
# of copies sold on Steam and other platforms.
Or, on average, one copy sold every five minutes — comfortably keeping pace with last year!
4,506,463
# of views of Markiplier’s two recent videos featuring Universe Sandbox.
These were the most watched Universe Sandbox videos on YouTube this year. And this brings the total number of views of Markiplier’s Universe Sandbox videos to… 35,522,196. Granted, 24 million of those views are on the so-catchy-you-really-will-regret-being-reminded-of-it Space is Cool remix, but we’ll take some credit for providing a bit of inspiration and a nice backdrop for Markiplier’s auto-tuned cries of love for space. Many thanks to Markiplier for helping spread the word!
Can you BLOW UP a BLACK HOLE: https://youtu.be/LW6S74J4kA8
1000 WAYS to DESTROY EARTH: https://youtu.be/4FEdjWW98QI
>6,000,000
# of supernovae in Universe Sandbox.
According to our analytics, y’all have exploded more than 6 million stars. Needless to say, that’s an accomplishment.
What’s Next?
Our big features this year were Localization (support for other languages) and Steam Workshop. A lot of time and effort went into these features, and we think they’re a pretty big deal — Localization opens up Universe Sandbox for the first time to people all over the world, and support for Workshop has made it super easy to check out an ever increasing catalogue of simulations made by people pushing the limits of Universe Sandbox.
But we also recognize that these features did not change any aspects of the simulation itself. And the simulation is the heart of Universe Sandbox. While we made a number of some smaller improvements and fixes related to the simulation, we unfortunately ran into continual issues with two big updates that we had hoped to get out this year — Surface Grids / Lasers and a physics rewrite. Surface Grids will allow for more detailed surface simulation, including localized temperatures, which makes possible things like heating from lasers. The physics rewrite should greatly increase physics performance and pave the way for additional physics-related features, like megastructures.
We hope to have more news about Surface Grids soon, along with some insight into some of the obstacles we’ve faced with its development. We also continue to work on other projects like new star audio, a new tutorial system, a VR interface overhaul, new galaxies, a mobile version, and continual improvements to the overall experience.
We thank all of you for your continued support of Universe Sandbox! This year we remain committed to improving Universe Sandbox as we develop and plan new features, upgrades, and fixes for 2019 and the years to come.
– The Universe Sandbox Team
Dan, Chris, Georg, Alexander, Jenn, Jonathan, Dave, Rappo, Mat, Jacob, Erika, Jules, and Jared
Universe Sandbox ² 2017 Retrospective
Jan 12th
2017 was another great year for Universe Sandbox ². Our big milestone was Update 20, which – as we explained in our blog post – replaced the whole foundation for Universe Sandbox ² and opened up tons of new possibilities. We also launched on the Oculus Store, expanded our team, and continued to see positive reviews pour in. Our sales once again surpassed our expectations, which has helped in our team expansion and keeps us looking forward to a long list of great features and improvements.
It may not have been the flashiest development year for us, but what we accomplished was extremely important and we’re very proud. Plus we expect some flashy stuff to arrive soon enough.
Here’s a look at our achievements in 2017 by the numbers:
3
# of new spacecraft models.
Find them in Add > Objects:
- Voyager 1 & 2
- Arrival
- Cassini
4
# of team members who joined us on our journey to build the universe.
Warm welcomes to:
- Mat | Quality Assurance
- Jacob | VR Developer
- Barry | Graphics Developer
- Erika | Astrophysicist, Climate & Simulation Developer
9
# of significant updates to Universe Sandbox ².
- Prettier Moons & Bug Fixes | Alpha 19.5 | February 08, 2017
- TRAPPIST-1 & the Seven Planets | Alpha 19.6 | February 23, 2017
- Voyager & Two Icy Moons | Alpha 19.7 | April 19, 2017
- A New Foundation & VR 2.0 | Update 20 | June 22, 2017
- Total Solar Eclipse | Update 20.1 | August 14, 2017
- Ciao, Cassini | Update 20.2 | September 14, 2017
- A New Exoplanet & Interstellar Messenger | Update 20.3 | November 21, 2017
- Oculus Store Launch | Update 20.3.1 | December 7, 2017
- Scales & Scholars | Update 20.4 | December 21, 2017
12
# of new & improved textures.
- Ganymede
- The Moon
- Mimas
- Enceladus
- Callisto
- Rhea
- Titan
- Dione
- Iapetus
- Tethys
- Vesta
- Mercury
26
# of new simulations.
This year we made an effort to add even more simulations for historical and current astronomical events. Explore the newly announced exoplanets in the TRAPPIST-1 and Ross 128 sims; watch 2012 TC4 and Apophis skim past Earth; and say hello to our first known interstellar visitor, ‘Oumuamua, and goodbye to Cassini, the spacecraft that illuminated Saturn.
- 2 TRAPPIST-1 sims
- 2 Vsauce sims
- 3 Total Solar Eclipse sims
- 7 Voyager 1 & 2 sims
- 2012 TC4 passes Earth on October 12, 2017
- Cassini’s Collision with Saturn
- Potentially Hazardous Asteroids
- 400 Nearest Stars
- Ross 128 with Earth-sized Planet
- Just Chariklo
- ‘Oumuamua in 2017
- Solar System – Now & Real Time
- Planets Between the Earth & Moon
- Apophis Encounters Earth in 2029
- Earth’s Most Stable Quasi-Satellite, 2016 HO3
- Solar System Planet Comparison
35
# of pages of release notes for Universe Sandbox ² updates in 2017.
Check out What’s New.
587
Highest # of concurrent users in Universe Sandbox ² in 2017 (happened on December 25).
This isn’t quite as many as our all-time high in March 2016 (our first big sale after our launch on Steam the summer before), but it’s the highest since. We’re happy to see that we continue to bring in new players and keep our fans coming back for more.
1,008
# of tasks closed in our task management system.
Tasks keep track of all the bugs we want to fix and the improvements and features we want to add, as well as higher level goals like design work and ideas we want to explore. Once we complete whatever the task asked for, like fixing a bug, we pass it on for approval to Mat, our QA, then close it and move onto the next task.
1,186
# of positive Steam reviews of Universe Sandbox ² written in 2017.
1,413
# of new tasks opened in our task management system.
While it would have been nice to close a task each time we opened a new one, it’s unfortunately easier, generally speaking, to imagine an improvement or feature than it is to implement it, and it’s easier to spot a bug than it is to fix it. Development on other games may look a bit different, but with Universe Sandbox ², we don’t hesitate to write down any idea that comes our way. We still focus our efforts toward specific milestones, but at the same time, we don’t stop ourselves from dreaming up a development road that goes past the horizon.
3,673
# of commits made to our project.
A commit is essentially a package of code changes that a team member adds to the project. It could include one small change, like adding a parenthesis, or it could include hundreds of lines of code.
>100,000
# of copies sold on Steam and other platforms.
Or, on average, one copy sold every five minutes.
5,361,590
# of views of Vsauce’s Which Way Is Down video featuring Universe Sandbox ².
Universe Sandbox ² is used (starting at 45 seconds in) as part of an exploration into how gravity works. We’re big fans of Vsauce and were super happy to see Universe Sandbox ² in one of their videos. The icing on the cake: when Michael said “This simulator will blow your mind. I love it.”
18,472,265
# of views in 2017 of all YouTube videos specifically about Universe Sandbox ².
Take this number with a grain of salt. It’s hard to say how accurate this value is from SteamSpy, but it’s a fun number regardless! And this doesn’t even include the above 5+ million views from the Vsauce video.
What’s Next?
What we don’t see in the list above is all of the work we did in 2017 that has yet to be released. There’s a lot of it. Planet grids, lasers, Steam Workshop, localization, stellar evolution, and on and on. Check out our roadmap from last year to get an idea of what we’re working on.
We’re moving closer to our next big release, Update 21, and we’re excited to show off what we’ve been doing. Once Update 21 has come and gone, we’ll share a new roadmap for 2018 that we expect will be no less exciting than last year’s. Stay tuned! And as always, thanks to all our fans for joining us on this cosmic journey. Your continued support and enthusiasm make all of this possible.