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Social Gravity

Calculate the correct trajectory.
The majority isn't always right.

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How Social Proof Bias Works

The math behind every shot is projectile motion with no air resistance: horizontal range is R = v² × sin(2θ) / g, where v is your launch speed, θ is the launch angle, and g is gravity. One consequence worth knowing: the same speed can produce the identical range at two different angles, since sin(2×30°) and sin(2×60°) are equal — a steeper or flatter arc doesn't automatically mean a longer or shorter shot without actually checking the number. Getting the range right is a calculation you can do exactly, which is what makes the rest of the game meaningful: there's always a real correct answer sitting underneath the social pressure.

Each round shows a scatter of translucent "ghost" trajectories, deliberately weighted so most of them cluster around a decoy distance instead of the real target, plus a hint line reporting where the crowd actually landed. This is a playable version of a well-documented finding in social psychology, often associated with Solomon Asch's mid-20th-century conformity experiments: people will shift an objectively checkable answer to match what a visible group says, even when the group is wrong and the correct answer is available to check directly. The game's "Independence" score at the end tracks how often you landed on the real, calculated target instead of drifting toward wherever the crowd went — a simplified stand-in for resisting that pull, not a rigorous psychological measurement.

Frequently Asked Questions

What formula determines where my shot actually lands?

With no air resistance, horizontal range is R = v² × sin(2θ) / g, where v is launch speed, θ is the launch angle, and g is gravity (9.8 m/s²). That means two different angles can produce the exact same range at a given speed — 30° and 60° land in the same spot, since sin(60°) and sin(120°) are equal — so "aim higher" isn't automatically better or worse without checking the actual number.

Why do most of the translucent "ghost" trajectories cluster around a distance that isn't the real target?

The game deliberately weights most of the background shots toward a decoy distance, separate from the actual target — the social hint line ("X/Y fired toward the near/far zone") tells you where the crowd landed, not where the target is. It's meant to recreate the pull of visible social consensus, the same shape as classic conformity experiments where people shift an objectively checkable answer to match what a group around them said.

Does a high "Independence" score just mean I ignored the crowd, or that I was actually right?

In this game those two things are the same, by design — you only score a hit by calculating the real trajectory correctly, and "Independence" is simply how often you did that instead of drifting toward the decoy zone. In real life the two aren't always identical: sometimes a group's shared answer is genuinely correct, and blind independence for its own sake isn't automatically better than checking the group's reasoning — the game models resisting unearned social pressure, not "always ignore other people."