UCLO Explore is a short educational video game where you can explore the UCL Observatory site to learn about and interact with our 5 astronomical telescopes.
Our game runs on the Unity engine and is hosted in-browser as a WebGL game. Explore a faithful rendition of the UCLO site, interact with all 5 of our astronomical telescopes and view images and videos taken directly through the telescopes themselves. The game can be played in the window in the page, or you can switch to fullscreen by tapping the blue icon on the bottom right. For weaker computers or laptops, we recommend playing in the small-windowed mode as full-screen will be more taxing for your system.
If you get a notification that your browser does not support WebGL, please refer to Troubleshooting below.
Click 'Play Now' to be taken to the game.
If you have any comments or encounter any bugs or issues, please let us know!
Please direct any comments and feedback to: uclo_game@uclo.ucl.ac.uk
Troubleshooting
- WebGL is not working in my browser
The most likely reason for this issue is that WebGL is disabled on your current browser. If you have other browsers on your system we would recommend just trying it in a different browser, Chrome appears to be the most reliable from our experience. If your browser isn't up-to-date, we recommend updating it as the first thing. There is also a possibility your graphics drivers need updating. This is usually achieved by updating your system if it is not currently up-to-date. See below for browser-specific troubleshooting:
Chrome
- Enter chrome://settings as your browser url.
- Scroll down and click on 'Show advanced settings'
- Scroll down and check if 'Use Hardware Acceleration when Available' is ticked. If unticked, tick the box. Then close and reopen Chrome and try accessing the WebGL game again.
If this didn't solved your issue, continue with next steps: - Enter chrome://gpu in the url bar and find the 'Graphics Feature Status' (most likely the first thing in the list).
- See what the status for WebGL 2.0 is. If it states 'unavailable' or 'Software only' then you need to check the 'Problems Detected' section and see what it says. It could be that an extension you have installed in blocking it, you need to update your graphics drivers or your graphics card is blacklisted. If its an extension blocking it, you need to remove the extension. If graphics drivers needs updating, please update them. If your hardware is blacklisted then unfortunately your hardware is simply incompatible with WebGL and you must try on a different system.
Firefox
- In the browser url bar, type and enter 'about:config'
- In the search bar, search for 'webgl.disabled' and check what its value is. If set to true, set it instead to false and then close and reopen Firefox and try and access WebGL again.
If this didn't work, check the renderer status of your graphics: - Type 'about:support' into the url bar and enter.
- Scroll down to 'Graphics' and check what it says for the WebGL2 Renderer. It should say the name of your graphics card. If it instead says 'Blocked' for any reason, check if your graphics drivers are up-to-date and try updating them. It may also mean your hardware is blacklisted, and unfortunately your hardware is simply incompatible with WebGL and you might need to try on a different system. We recommend first trying the page in a different browser as well.
Safari
- Click on the top bar Safari > Preferences.
- Navigate to the 'Advanced' tab.
- Look at the 'Show Develop menu in menu bar' at the very bottom of the window and tick it if it is unticked.
- A 'Develop' open in the top bar should have now appeared.
- Select Develop > Experimental Features > WebGL2 and make sure it is ticked. If this isn't possible you may need to update your Safari browser first.
Microsoft Edge
- In the browser url bar type 'edge://settings/system'.
- Check that 'Use hardware acceleration when available' is ticked, and tick it if it isn't then restart your browser.
If this didn't work, check the WebGL status: - Type in the url bar 'edge://gpu'.
- Find the 'Graphics Feature Status' and the WebGL status within this.
- If WebGL is enabled it should say 'Hardware accelerated', if it is anything else then look at the 'Problems Detected' list below and check why WebGL is not enabled. It may be that you need to update your graphics drivers, or that your graphics cards are blacklisted and incompatible with WebGL and you would need to use a different system. We recommend also trying WebGL in a different browser.
- My game is stuttering/slow
This is likely due to the system you are using, generally playing on a PC will yield better results than playing on laptop. We recommend if you are on a laptop or an older system to play the game as you see it when you load into the page without enabling fullscreen with the button on the bottom right, as fullscreen mode is more taxing.
- I want to play on a touchscreen device
This version of the game is currently only for desktop controls with mouse and keyboard, and a lot of mobile and tablet browsers won't support this version of the game.
A touchscreen version of the game is being developed, feel free to drop us an email at uclo_game@uclo.ucl.ac.uk to let us know you'd like to use it in this format! We'll let you know as soon as the touchscreen version is launched.