Mars Mission Maze Game!

Theme: Within our solar system, a gravitational anomaly has ripped holes in the fabric of space-time! The anomaly has also been wrecking havoc on the Mars colonies life-sustaining electrical equipment, and new equipment is urgently needed! To make matters worse, the current orbits of earth and mars are opposed across the center of our solar system. You, as the pilot of a spherical re-supply ship, must launch from earth and navigate across the center of the solar system and land on mars near the existing colony.  You must navigate around the gravitational pull of the planets, sun and moons, and avoid being sucked into the gravitational anomalous holes!

Game: This is a space-mission themed, rolling ball maze game.  The game "board" can be tilted to guide the ball along the maze corridors.  The game starts by placing the ball at the "GO!" position, and ends when the player guides the ball to the "LAND!" position.  There are various holes in the game board, both around the planet pieces and alone, that the ball can fall through.  Falling through the board ends the players turn and requires them to return the ball to the "GO!" beginning position.  After the ball falls through the top board, the ball falls into a lower collection board, and the player can tilt the board to allow the ball to exit through the opening near the starting "GO!" position.

3D Printing: I purposefully designed this game so that all parts could be easily printed using FFF methods, without any supporting material. Unfortunately I did not get a chance to print this game myself, so I cannot recommend a material or infill %.

Assembly: I designed the game pieces to be connectable using a "peg and hole" method.  I included a .005" clearance between the "pegs" and "holes", which may afford a press and fit style of assembly, or may require some gluing if the fit is loose. 

 

Notes: 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 purposefully resisted the urge to make the game overly difficult so that it will appeal to a wider range of potential users.

Because I came across this contest only a few days ago, I did not 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:

• Better usage of the available space on the board for more maze corridors

• Versions with varying levels of difficulty

• Added texturing and other details to the celestial bodies (green land on earth, craters and other textures on moons and mars, etc.)

• Peg and hole clearance optimized for various, or specific, 3D printers

Special thanks to Pixabay (https://pixabay.com/en/solar-s...) for the main image background.