Show HN: Rocket Drone, a lunar lander type game for the web

Hi all, thanks for all the great feedback so far! Here is a bit more context: I (also go by wavy) made this game while taking a break from my work project. It was inspired by the old-school lunar lander games as well as drone racing. I wanted to build something that illustrates the difficulty of drone flight. It was made in p5.js over the course of several weekends. I never really intended on publishing it until I showed it to a few friends who kept on encouraging me. I'm glad some of you are enjoying it!

There is something very frustrating with the spin inertia, almost impossible to regain control when things start rotating...<p>Here is a tip for a recent C64 game that uses one rocket like lunar lander:<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;csdb.dk&#x2F;release&#x2F;?id=201753" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;csdb.dk&#x2F;release&#x2F;?id=201753</a>

I ran this full screen and let other people play. Some notes:<p>It&#x27;s a really easy game if you have a slow computer, the physics has to be separated from the graphics.<p>Add a splash screen with the &quot;Rocket drone&quot; name when you die so it&#x27;s easier to know what&#x27;s being played.<p>The instructions for using P and Q was not obvious for three people who tried it. (non native speakers and children). N=5<p>Fun as a fast game or as a slow game.

Great job with the feel and aesthetic!<p>But it&#x27;s way too hard for me: I couldn&#x27;t get past Level 3 of the tutorial :&#x2F;.

I want to swap P&amp;Q doesn&#x27;t feel natural. This is hard as hell :D

This is a pretty solid game. Two thoughts:<p>- It is so hard to maintain control that it feels unfair rather than challenging on tricky levels.<p>- The game should reward the player to give them a sense of progress - this will prevent many of them from quitting after struggling for a few minutes. A leaderboard could work.

First couple of free play (random I guess) levels were easy, then I ended up with one where there was insufficient fuel to complete it. It might be solvable by going balistic through some section, but I lost patiens, then couldn&#x27;t find the random id for a retry later.<p>Highscores for the daily (and yesterdaily to check where you ended up) would be nice.<p>On mobile it shows controls in lower left&#x2F;right corners, which is a little inconvenient. Luckily, touching anywhere on the left&#x2F;right side of the screen works.<p>Possibility to zoom out would be nice, to avoid the possibility to fly into a dead end.<p>Also, I&#x27;m somewhat confused. This is HN and noone has yet posted some js that calculates&#x2F;plays automatically? Iirc that was the case for the NASA docking simulator. Or did I dream this up?

Really really fun. Thought &quot;I&#x27;ll give this a quick go before dinner&quot; and ended up spending long enough on it that I need to re-heat dinner now.<p>Always been a huge fan of these types of games, and I think this one nails the frustration-that-means-you-appreciate-the-wins-more feeling that lots of arcade games had, and that so many modern games miss.

Classic problem of the game is too easy for the developer because they&#x27;ve been playing it for so long. The controls are unintuitive but fun if you&#x27;re willing to take a beating for a while. Even after a long time learning tho there&#x27;s a strong lack of control, a little bit of rotational friction tending to keep the ship upright would go a long way

Very cool game! I&#x27;m into controls and would love to write a PID controller for it to stabilize it and have it auto-follow my mouse, as a controls demo.<p>I&#x27;m not sure how best to capture it&#x27;s state though (position, xy velocity, angular velocity, etc.), Nor how to integrate mouse into it.

Lots of fun. Works surprisingly well on mobile too.<p>The Astro’s Playroom tech demo for the PS5 has a level like this where the DualSense triggers are used for the thrusters. The force feedback is incredible and really gives you an edge in feathering the thrust. It’s also a lot easier!

The controls get stuck on my Android phone. It&#x27;d be much more fun if that didn&#x27;t happen.<p>The fact you have to land fully in the &#x27;landing pad&#x27; is also immensely annoying. With a more play testing and better controls it could be fun.<p>I&#x27;m really tempted to make a clone in React.

Awesome! Great work. Reminds me of Landing Confirmed on android on which I have extensive flight experience, but this particular tuning of the physics feels more difficult.<p>Is the acceleration constant or does it dependent on fuel remaining like real rockets?

Wow, this is a very hard game :) Five tries to even go away from the first platform :)

After trying this for 30 minutes and not landing... I noticed the .lol domain extension.<p>I hate you

A lovely little game, I didn&#x27;t enjoy Q and P as the main controls as it forces two hands and there are few existing games using this layout, so a little counter-intuitive. Otherwise a great LL clone!

Wow. This game is hard, and kind of addicting. I haven’t even gotten to land safely once.<p>One feedback: on mobile, if my phone locks or I navigate away from the browser, it freezes when I come back. I can’t click reset. (IOS)

Really cool game, but the name should be something different, like Explosion simulator or Drone kamikaze. I couldn&#x27;t even complete the tutorial, I can&#x27;t keep control of the thing :)

I&#x27;d love to see you add some settings we can change, such as gravity and moment of inertia parameters, engine thrust force, and custom control keys.

Could do with some optimisation. Runs very slow for me.

Just perfect, don&#x27;t change a thing about the steering! &lt;3 Very rewarding!<p>Add some cool retro music and wait for Ludwig yelling at the game on stream ;)

This is brilliant. Spun out of control into a fiery crash.<p>Any chance you could, if you&#x27;re the creator of this, share the source code?

Modest success using African drumming patterns on the thrusters. Always knew that class would be useful one day.

I&#x27;ve always found rocket thrust control games like this extremely satisfying for some reason.

Level 8725302049 is absolutely mean<p>Love it; look forward to next version with 1 booster + 2x reaction wheels ;)

Even if you use procedurally generated levels, first few should be hand picked to be easy.

You are a sick person, crispisulcans, why would you bring misery to the world ? :D

Holy shit this game is hard. First few levels, maybe a bit of extra health?

Try Crossing Hand, Right hand on Q and Left hand on P.<p>It will help a little bit, not much.

I can’t get anywhere on this. Instantly lost 20 mins of my life!

Looks perfect for use in RL tutorials. Does it have an API?

Just a small suggestion, make the initial few levels easy!

Crash and burn. Constantly. Why do you do this to people?<p>I’m trying again…

this is awesome - definitely takes some skill. is there a website for simple games like this (sorta like miniclip)?

Most of the challenge comes from bad controls.

Definitely want to learn more about this!

At least it&#x27;s fast to try again!

window.setInterval(() =&gt; game.drone.damage_threshold = 1000, 1000), still hard. Very nice!

Agh so good but so annoying :)

controls are way, way too sensitive.

god damn this is so hard hahaha

This game is terrible, I will not be playing it again.<p><i>[47 long years pass, my family gathers solemnly at my deathbed]</i><p>Fine, okay, one more try. But then that is <i>it</i>.

The thrust being so sensitive you have no control, and then when you have enough speed, you have no power. It&#x27;s literally unplayable.

Absolutely unplayable. I spent 5 minutes on the &quot;tutorial&quot; and can&#x27;t do anything but crash after 2 or 3 seconds. Looks like trolling, not a game :)

why not use the arrow keys?<p>It&#x27;s bloody weird using both hands to try and control the ship