Mars Mission Maze Game!

pinshape

Within our solar system, a massive gravitational disturbance has torn gaping holes in space-time's fabric! This anomaly is wreaking havoc on Mars colonies' life-sustaining electrical equipment, and urgent new supplies are desperately needed! To make matters worse, Earth and Mars orbits are now opposed across the center of our solar system. As the pilot of a spherical re-supply ship, you must launch from Earth, navigate through the gravitational pull of planets, sun, and moons, and avoid being sucked into the anomalous holes! This is a space-mission themed rolling ball maze game where the "board" can be tilted to guide the ball along the maze corridors. The game starts with placing the ball at the "GO!" position and ends when the player guides the ball to the "LAND!" position. Various holes in the board, both around planet pieces and alone, allow the ball to fall through, ending the player's turn and requiring them to return the ball to the "GO!" starting position. After falling through the top board, the ball falls into a lower collection board, and the player can tilt the board to let the ball exit through the opening near the starting "GO!" position. I designed this game so that all parts could be easily printed using FFF methods without any supporting material. Unfortunately, I didn't get a chance to print this game myself, so I cannot recommend a material or infill percentage. The game pieces are connectable using a "peg and hole" method, with a .005" clearance between the pegs and holes, allowing for either press-fit assembly or gluing if needed. This was a fun contest to design for, and I hope this game design can be a fun and entertaining diversion for people of all ages. I resisted the urge to make the game overly difficult so that it will appeal to a wider range of potential users. Since I came across this contest only a few days ago, I didn't have time to optimize the design as much as I would have liked to. However, I'm hopeful that others will iterate and improve upon my original design! Some potential areas for improvement include: * Better usage of available space on the board for more maze corridors * Versions with varying levels of difficulty * Added texturing and other details to celestial bodies (green land on Earth, craters and textures on moons and Mars) * Optimized peg and hole clearance for various or specific 3D printers Special thanks to Pixabay for the main image background.