Sphere games feature a wrap-around map. If your starship flies off one side, it comes right onto the other side, bringing more and more friends or enemies together. There is no backing into a corner in this game.
This implementation of Sphere is a true wraparound. Minefields laid on one edge of the map wrap right around to other side. Ion storms, star cluster radiation, nebulae and other map features all wrap in this truly edgeless map.
To make navigating this insane scenario easier, the user interface perfectly mirrors a narrow stretch at the edges of the map around the outside so you can navigate from one edge to other seamlessly.
Expect to see Sphere as a standard configuration for Giant Melee games in the future. Welcome to maps without borders!
This text is an excerpt from an article in the forum news. View the original here.
The implementation of Shpere at Planets.nu can be envisioned as the surface of a torus after having been peeled and flattened. This animated image from WikiPedia should help:
Use of the Sphere feature will always be based on a rectangular area, even for a circular map. This can create some interesting scenarios where some outer borders are safer than others.
