Black Hole Escape 2009

A 2D Bullet Hell Game personal project developed for a high school physics project about black holes. Developed in Gamemaker using a mix of their GML scripting language and their drag&drop visual scripting, I designed and implemented the core gameplay loops, scoring systems, art and animations, as well as researched black holes, event horizons and related phenomena for an oral presentation.

Your spacecraft has accidentally entered the ergosphere of a stellar mass black hole and your store of fuel cells has scattered throughout the area. You must collect more fuel cells and avoid debris while trying to get away before you enter the event horizon. 

Controls

Left&Right arrows to move

Up Arrow Key to Boost

Tips

Use your boost effectively to gain more fuel and get away

Avoid asteroids and debris or else your ship might blow up

If you touch the event horizon you lose

Information

What are black holes?

Black holes are believed to be singularities with near infinite amounts of mass contained within an infinitely small space. These singularities create intense gravitational pull that suck in all nearby matter within an area called an ergosphere. Around the singularity is the event horizon that is an area where the gravity is so strong nothing not even light can escape being pulled into the singularity. 

How are black holes formed?

Most black holes are formed when massive stars reach the end of their lifetime and collapse if they are large enough (over 20 times the size of the sun) they either turn into a white dwarf or a stellar mass black hole.

What types of black holes exist?

The most common and proved type of black hole are stellar mass black holes. Another type of black hole that has been theorized but is very hard to prove is an intermediate black hole that would be created by the collision and then collapse of two stars. Another black hole type that are believed to be in the center of most galaxies are super massive black holes that would be millions of times larger than a stellar mass black hole but would have relatively little density, These black holes are believed to be created by pressure from the big bang, collapse of entire stellar clusters or giant gas clouds.

Is there any way to survive a black hole?

There is no way to escape from a black hole once you have entered the event horizon but if you have sufficient power and acceleration to counter the massive gravitational pull of the black hole it you could get out of the ergoshpere.

Are black holes going to suck up everything?   

Black holes only have a gravitational pull within the ergoshpere which is incredibly large but most things within the egrosphere have already been sucked up.