A strategy game you can play a few minutes a day
Orbital runs on a real clock. You give orders, close the tab, and the game resolves on the server whether you are watching or not. A few check-ins a day is enough to run an empire.
The daily loop
- Give your orders: send fleets, queue ships at your yards, propose laws, make offers. A few minutes is enough.
- The clock ticks: ships move, battles resolve and economies pay out, hourly by default.
- Read the briefing: the Situation Report shows fights in progress, fleets inbound, idle shipyards and decisions waiting on you.
Your empire keeps going while you are away
Freighters keep running their routes, armed stations defend themselves, and ships in flight keep flying. Nobody plays your empire for you, so set your orders before you log off. When something needs you, an alert reaches you by browser notification, Discord or email.
Pick the pace
The default is one tick an hour. Hosts can choose anything from a tick a minute to a tick a day, and can set a different speed for different times of day, such as a slower clock overnight.
Two to ten players share a game, and it runs until someone wins: by Domination, by election as Supreme Chancellor, or by building a Dyson Sphere.
On your phone, too
Orbital runs in any modern browser on desktop, tablet and phone, with nothing to install. Orbital is free with no ads, and nothing that affects the game is for sale. An optional one-time Commander’s Commission ($10) is cosmetic: ship designs, megastructure looks, premium emblems, and your games posted to your own Discord server.
Free · No download · No ads