Just to share another small discovery: From the education game plan in astronomy it is a standard bullet to say "'planet' means 'wanderer' cause the planets wander around the sky" and this often leads to remarks about apparent retrograde motion. That is, apparently changing direction and then changing back messes with the notion of orbit so it is nice to see what is wrapped up in the appearance.
What I did
I focused on earth in solar system mode and set the planet size to "Large" so I could easily see Mars. I sat back to about two moon orbits from earth with the sun at my back. I also cranked the time rate under View to x1000000 so it takes about 31 seconds for an earth year. The video game aspect (after hitting play and waiting for mars to enter the fov) is to just ride the view controls (arrow keys) to keep mars in sight. Sure enough once per year you get some retrograde against the background stars, a more direct experience than looking at the ecliptic from above and inferring apparent retrograde, the usual way I've seen it done. This also works well with Venus although Mercury is a little tougher because of the necessary inflation of the sun putting Mercury on the solar disc for much of its orbit.
Since orbit lines tend to guide the eye they can be a bit distracting; I played around with them both on and off and it's probably a matter of taste.