Every action within the game, from the construction of a factory to the attack of another planet, takes a set number of these ticks, which gives the game a unique mix between turn-based and real-time gameplay, as it allows players only a limited window of time to react to other player's actions.

The game updates once per hour, which is called a tick in-game.

Every few months, the game is reset, at which point winners are declared and a new round of play starts, commonly with a number of new features and updates to keep the gameplay balanced. The game offers a player the choice between five races, each with their own types ships and advantages, allowing for a variety of strategies. The objective of the game is to attain a higher score than your opponents, which can be achieved primarily by stealing their asteroids and destroying their fleets. Although its popularity has declined with the emergence of other similar games and the introduction of a pay-to-play model, which has since been changed to a freemium format, the game is currently still active, and as such is one of the oldest running internet games of its genre. The game places players in control of a planet, with the ability to mine its asteroids for resources, enabling them to construct a fleet of spaceships to attack other player's planets. Created by Fifth Season AS in early 2000, then bought by Jolt in 2003, and then purchased by in 2009 it is now currently owned by Jagex. Planetarion (commonly referred to as PA) is a browser-based massively multiplayer online game.

Browser based games like planetarion