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[filiph]

I recently wanted to play a game that wouldn't make my laptop's fans spin. I couldn't find any, even among the simplest of games, and in the end I decided to remake one of my favorite games myself.



The current version might make your laptop's fans spin, but I know for a fact that I can optimize it later (I've done tests at the beginning of development).

Of course, I also want the game to be fun, not just resource-frugal. I've spent hours playing it and still find it enjoyable. I also know about 2 other people who've been finding it fun to play.

But before I go any further, I'd like the TIG Source Forums input.

https://filiph.github.io/lunar_lander/

The controls are listed on that page, but they are basically:

• WSAD for up-down-left-right thrusters (up is the most powerful by far)
• QE for left right rotation

What's missing:

• Menu - the game just plays immediately, and after death it restarts
• Resizing - if you change your browser size (like if you go full screen), you have to refresh (F5)
• Sound - though that might be a feature, not a bug (see below)

I don't want to bias with some leading question, so my question for you is simply: after playing for a bit, any feedback? If that's too vague, I can list some concrete questions in a follow-up post.



I should say that the graphics are pretty close to what I want to have in the end. Not because I'm a retro geek but because I genuinely think that the simplicity is worth it.

I should also say what this game is for. I hope this will become the kind of game you want to play when you have 5 minutes to spare but not much more. Or when you just want to "switch off your brain" and play something mindless. It's the videogame equivalent of fidgeting with a pen, kicking a ball around, or playing with a top. (Thus, it must run immediately and without consuming too much CPU/battery power.) I don't see many games like this anymore, probably because of market pressures.

At the same time, this game is not trying to be addictive. It's not trying to hook players with some arbitrary progression, or locking them into some economy. You want to kill a few minutes, even after weeks of not playing it? This game should deliver. Anything more: this game is not what you want.



I wanted to give you this context because, at least in my mind, that changes expectations.

The game is currently unnamed. I call it lunar lander for now, but of course that name is copyrighted by Atari. Even though I don't plan to sell this game, or even monetize it with ads, I still don't want to touch a copyrighted term. So, it'll be called something else. I'll figure that out later.





Thanks for reading this far!

[filiph]

Oh! I forgot to say: if you want a soundtrack, I highly recommend playing http://somafm.com/missioncontrol/ in the background.

[gools.vj]

Dude, for what you're going for, I think it is great. The looks, the gameplay... I guess the only thing that jumped out on me a little bit was the design of the stage, with some caves that look a bit unnatural. Or maybe aliens made them!

[filiph]

Thanks for the feedback!

Dude, for what you're going for, I think it is great. The looks, the gameplay...

I'm really glad for that "looks" part. I kind of like the looks myself, but I was half expecting that it's just my weird taste or complete style-blindness. Having someone else say it is really great.

I guess the only thing that jumped out on me a little bit was the design of the stage, with some caves that look a bit unnatural. Or maybe aliens made them!

Oh, great point. I should revisit that before I go much further with the game.

[Feelcrafter]

Hey, that is quite a fun game. It meets the intent very well.

Feedback: I have to confess that I very rarely moved to the right half of the screen. Maybe spawning more timers farther from the player after a while would be nice (not sure if that already happens).
Overall, that's a great game, keep it up!

[jbarrios]

Hi filiph,

I played your game:

[filiph]

I played your game:

That is fantastic, thank you! I really like the chill reviews on your channel.

I said it in a comment on youtube but I'll say it here: this review uncovered a huge issue in that most people don't realize you can rotate the ship with Q and E buttons. (Why would they?) I remedied the issue somewhat by adding a CONTROLS menu item even before seeing your video (you played the old version - my bad), but the review shows that I should probably do more.

[filiph]

Ok, I've iterated on the game a bit. Made some things more obvious, added sound, support for dark/light mode, and some other minimal improvements. I'd be grateful for feedback because I'm currently happy with it (to the extent that any developer is ever happy with any of their work, and of course given the very minimal goals I've had with this project) and I'm thinking of saying "enough". But I need others' input before doing the final cut.

[Mofy]

After spending 20 minutes or so killing my self after chasing the harder goals. I was entertained and have bookmarked this.

The goals felt arbitrary, perhaps adjust them for distance + time?
I rarely used rotate with strafe there wasn't much point unless I was going for a hard goal, rotate felt unresponsive to me.

I would love to see a version where you make short hops to cross a long distance, perhaps scrolling the screen when landing, revealing the next pad choices.

Great job, congratulations!


EDIT to add:
Fullscreen on a mac with chrome left things letterboxed, it blended out the browser / window chrome but did not fill the screen.

[filiph]

That is excellent feedback, Mofy, thank you!

The goals felt arbitrary, perhaps adjust them for distance + time?

Acknowledged. They are already adjusted for distance + time but there's a large element of chance and it kind of sucks. Added to my TODO list.

I rarely used rotate with strafe there wasn't much point unless I was going for a hard goal, rotate felt unresponsive to me.

This is really interesting. I never use strafe and find it much more fun to rotate. But you're the second person saying they prefer strafing. By playing this game to death, I've become way too accustomed to the controls, so I really welcome to feedback. Could you please elaborate on the way rotation felt unresponsive? Does it take too long to "get moving"? Or is it too hard to stop? Do you feel it should be faster? Slower? No worries if you can't put your finger on it, just checking.

Fullscreen on a mac with chrome left things letterboxed, it blended out the browser / window chrome but did not fill the screen.

Did it fill the screen in at least one direction? (E.g. it was letterboxed but only top and bottom.) Or did it fail to resize completely?

I would love to see a version where you make short hops to cross a long distance, perhaps scrolling the screen when landing, revealing the next pad choices.

Great idea. That was the initial design, actually, but I slashed it to make my job easier. Maybe LANDER2.

After spending 20 minutes or so killing my self after chasing the harder goals. I was entertained and have bookmarked this.

...

Great job, congratulations!

Made my day, thank you!

[Mofy]

on the subject of rotation:
With the cavet that I put quarters into a lunar lander machine before puberty. The rotation Doesn't Happen fast enough to be useful, except under extreme conditions. The strafe directly provides horizontal thrust without sacraficing vertical control. I mightuse it more if it were faster.
Again totaly just an opinion.

The letter boxing was only top and bottom, if it helps I will report canvas sizes and adjust till it fits (or at least provide the offset).

Edit to add:
the letterboxing seems to be the desiered behavior, it was always centered. You might get around this setting the body background color to a matching gradient, but this is me being super picky. Also while playing around with the canvas size, I saw how wondefuly optimized this, great job!

[Teearr]

I have only played this game for about 3 minutes and my thoughts are below:

Things I liked:

• This is a browser game with no downloads required (making it easier for me to playtest
• Game starts immediately, no cutscenes or distractions
• Minimalistic graphics and gameplay

Things I disliked:

• Very poor communication. When I first opened this game I saw the menu but mouse-clicks didn't work. I then pressed Enter which threw me into the game
• Poor game design. In my opinion all games should teach its own controls and goal really well without me having to guess. I'm not the kind of person who would read tonnes of manuals or walls of text just to understand controls and context. I want to jump straight in and learn as I play through a structured and well designed tutorial. It wasn't very clear to me that I had to land on grounds marked by numbers (which I sort of guessed). Any form of "guessing" required by me makes me feel frustrated and unwilling to play further