[HN Gopher] Show HN: Lander, a lunar lander style web game
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Show HN: Lander, a lunar lander style web game
 
I've been working on this game for the past few weeks. It's written
in plain JavaScript, mostly with canvas, with no dependencies.  The
code is here: https://github.com/ehmorris/lunar-lander
 
Author : ehmorris
Score  : 144 points
Date   : 2023-03-05 18:35 UTC (4 hours ago)
 
web link (ehmorris.com)
w3m dump (ehmorris.com)
 
| QuiCasseRien wrote:
| Extremly addictive p
 
| FigmentEngine wrote:
| 671 flips, lol
 
| zamadatix wrote:
| Crashing sideways is fun, the exploded parts continue to wrap
| around the screen if you "land" fast enough :D.
 
| mousetree wrote:
| Had a lot of fun
 
| [deleted]
 
| chrisweekly wrote:
| Awesoem job! Thanks for sharing!!
 
| frutiger wrote:
| Unbelievable, the crater is visible from Earth
| Score: 345.1 point crash         Speed: 2928.9mph         Angle:
| 175.6deg         Time: 696 seconds         Flips: 28         Max
| speed: 2928.9mph         Max height: 299886ft         Engine
| used: 37 times         Boosters used: 194 times
| https://ehmorris.com/lander/
 
| LorenDB wrote:
| I'd love to see an indicator showing how quickly you are
| rotating. That would make the final touchdown a lot easier to get
| straight, IMO.
| 
| Also, could the trajectory stay visible at all times? That would
| help plan burns better.
 
  | ehmorris wrote:
  | If you clone the repo and remove this condition you can try the
  | trajectory at all times: https://github.com/ehmorris/lunar-
  | lander/blob/master/lander/...
  | 
  | IMO it looked like a big noodle, and the "needle" at the bottom
  | bounces around distractingly. Plus, without the help all the
  | time, it's a little harder!
 
| markm248 wrote:
| Way more fun if you try to see high you can get your crash score.
| 26.3 personal best
 
| playingalong wrote:
| Nice one.
| 
| The left-right feel swapped to me, but I fail to give a factual
| reason.
| 
| Also reminds me of two 90s era DOS games: Ugh and some other
| about landing on Moon. Similar to yours, but the lander looked
| like a small tower/crate (for lack of better description).
 
  | boomlinde wrote:
  | I think some games in this style rather have you fire the left
  | thruster with the left arrow key and firing the right thruster
  | with the right arrow key, which kind of makes sense in its own
  | right.
 
| boomlinde wrote:
| I like this kind of game, and this is perfect for a short
| diversion! This is the best I can muster for now:
| Very nice landing, amazing              Score: 90.1 point landing
| Speed: 2.8mph         Angle: 0.4deg         Time: 9 seconds
| Flips: 0         Max speed: 38.7mph         Max height: 240ft
| Engine used: 10 times         Boosters used: 10 times
| https://ehmorris.com/lander/
 
| warent wrote:
| Pretty fun! I like trying to make as many flips as possible:
| Basically a fender bender, but you landed       Score: 45.4 point
| landing       Speed: 3.5mph       Angle: 9.5deg       Time: 62
| seconds       Flips: 18       Max speed: 86.8mph       Max
| height: 1276ft       Engine used: 32 times       Boosters used:
| 55 times
 
  | russellbeattie wrote:
  | I went up to 20,000+ feet, flipped 1000+ times, but then didn't
  | land it. I couldn't get it to stop flipping before it crashed.
 
| marcodiego wrote:
| Suggestion of improvement: landing should only be successful if
| lateral velocity is inside a limit.
 
  | ehmorris wrote:
  | Lateral velocity should be taken into account since I'm taking
  | the vector of the x/y velocity. It's just that it needs to be
  | under 12mph, so you can be going pretty fast laterally.
 
| siliconsorcerer wrote:
| Had a ton of fun with this :) thanks!
 
| bxparks wrote:
| Awesome, the highest crash landing speed I was able to achieve
| was 97.7 MPH after about 20-30 attempts.
 
  | [deleted]
 
  | bxparks wrote:
  | I went off screen, turned around and crashed at 394.6 MPH.
 
    | ehmorris wrote:
    | This, and going sideways really really fast is the way. The
    | highest I've seen is 1500mph.
 
      | bxparks wrote:
      | I crashed at 2499.1 mph by going sideways for a long long
      | time. How accurate is your physics? If I hit orbital
      | velocity, will I just orbit the moon? What if I hit escape
      | velocity?
 
        | ehmorris wrote:
        | That is amazing. Not accurate at all really, unless the
        | moon was an infinite plane I guess. If you hit escape
        | velocity you'll never land!
 
| [deleted]
 
| exebook wrote:
| Wanted to play, but after the tutorial a first touch makes the
| ship disappear. When I reload the page, I can see the ship again,
| and the landing curve, then again if I touch the screen
| everything disappear except for the stars.
 
  | ehmorris wrote:
  | Ah! If you've got a console error I'd appreciate it
 
    | ehmorris wrote:
    | Think I figured it out
 
| ziedaniel1 wrote:
| I enjoyed the easter eggs!
 
| pmx wrote:
| Had a great time seeing how fast I could make it go!
| 
| Impressive speed, impressive angle - you crashed with style
| 
| Score: 89.2 point crash Speed: 761.4mph Angle: 41.4deg Time: 82
| seconds Flips: 0 Max speed: 761.4mph Max height: 344ft Engine
| used: 97 times Boosters used: 45 times
| https://ehmorris.com/lander/
 
  | ehmorris wrote:
  | Very nice, did you hear the baby at the 400mph mark?
 
    | pmx wrote:
    | I did wonder what that sound was!
 
      | ehmorris wrote:
      | That's my baby
 
        | basicallydan wrote:
        | This is adorable.
        | 
        | Great game! I got a 95 point landing after a good few
        | goes then I saw all the fun people were having with the
        | crashes so I joined in. Great job!
 
        | minitoar wrote:
        | lol I sort of thought that was my baby on the monitor
 
| FuckShadowBans2 wrote:
| [dead]
 
| Evidlo wrote:
| The lander disappears as soon as I touch the controls and never
| crashes. Iceraven 1.14.0/Android 11
 
| [deleted]
 
| timbeccue wrote:
| Love this! Very simple and creative.                 A solid "C"
| landing            Score: 71.9 point landing       Speed: 4.7mph
| Angle: 2.5deg       Time: 276 seconds       Flips: 27       Max
| speed: 114.4mph       Max height: 1323ft       Engine used: 58
| times       Boosters used: 63 times
| https://ehmorris.com/lander/
 
| lagrange77 wrote:
| Perfect landing, incredible, you can't get better than this
| Score: 99.2 point landing       Speed: 1.0mph       Angle: 0.2deg
| Time: 52 seconds       Flips: 0       Max speed: 31.5mph
| Max height: 389ft       Engine used: 99 times       Boosters
| used: 7 times       https://ehmorris.com/lander/
| 
| I think my initial conditions were advantageous..
| 
| Great game!
 
| gavmor wrote:
| Apparently, it's all about feathering the throttle. Very nice!
| 
| Near-perfect landing, super smooth
| 
| Score: 96.5 point landing Speed: 1.1mph Angle: 0.7deg Time: 45
| seconds Flips: 0 Max speed: 43.7mph Max height: 256ft Engine
| used: 73 times Boosters used: 37 times
| https://ehmorris.com/lander/
| 
| ---
| 
| I see it took you about seven months from "Initial Commit" to its
| current state. How did you stay on track all that time?
 
  | ehmorris wrote:
  | Yes but you can also compete on using as little
  | throttle/booster as possible! IMO the perfect landing is one
  | where you engage the engine at the exact right moment to touch
  | down at <1mph, and you engage a booster only once in order to
  | be upright. Engine and booster use aren't part of the score
  | though.
  | 
  | The older commits were part of a previous idea that I
  | abandoned, then a few weeks ago I deleted almost everything and
  | gave it another try.
  | 
  | Thanks for playing!
 
    | moron4hire wrote:
    | Yeah, but how many times can you flip the rocket?
 
    | lagrange77 wrote:
    | > IMO the perfect landing is one where you engage the engine
    | at the exact right moment to touch down at <1mph, and you
    | engage a booster only once in order to be upright.
    | 
    | Would be interesting to see, if optimal control would do just
    | that or use many short bursts.
 
| jefc1111 wrote:
| Fun! I'd like to get a bonus for rotations in both directions.
 
  | ehmorris wrote:
  | I had a 1 point bonus for flips in the score but ended up
  | removing it because it felt too overpowered. But! Having a good
  | score AND flips is impressive in itself.
 
| dsego wrote:
| How is this a crash, because of the angle?                   So,
| so close to a landing, but still a crash              Score: 1.6
| point crash         Speed: 2.5mph         Angle: 12.2deg
| Time: 20 seconds         Flips: 0         Max speed: 34.5mph
| Max height: 221ft         Engine used: 20 times         Boosters
| used: 14 times         https://ehmorris.com/lander/
| 
| This is my best attempt for now:                   A good
| landing, keep trying              Score: 84.1 point landing
| Speed: 4.5mph         Angle: 0.0deg         Time: 23 seconds
| Flips: 0         Max speed: 32.5mph         Max height: 221ft
| Engine used: 26 times         Boosters used: 13 times
| https://ehmorris.com/lander/
 
  | dsego wrote:
  | New personal best!                   Very nice landing, amazing
  | Score: 92.2 point landing Speed: 0.5mph Angle: 2.2deg Time: 25
  | seconds Flips: 0 Max speed: 25.8mph Max height: 221ft Engine
  | used: 27 times Boosters used: 25 times
 
  | ehmorris wrote:
  | Yep the angle can't exceed 12
 
| nfriend wrote:
| Love it! It's like a cross between Flappy Bird and Asteroids.
| Nice tutorial at the beginning, too.
| 
| Just managed to get a 98.5, which I think was mostly luck.
 
| djmips wrote:
| The amazing thing is all these lunar lander games are harder than
| actually landing the lunar lander that landed on the moon. That's
| right it used a computer stabilized system and featured a fully
| automatic landing program however every lander was actually
| landed in the semi automatic mode where the pilot controlled the
| descent but the attitude was still maintained by computer.
 
  | lagrange77 wrote:
  | And they used an analog computer to integrate and display the
  | landing trajectory in real-time, just like in this game iirc.
 
| [deleted]
 
| bluedonuts wrote:
| Basically a fender bender, but you landed
| 
| Score: 53.6 point landing Speed: 9.8mph Angle: 1.4deg Time: 566
| seconds Flips: 182 Max speed: 635.2mph Max height: 62510ft Engine
| used: 109 times Boosters used: 145 times
| https://ehmorris.com/lander/
 
| sporadicallyjoe wrote:
| Tons of fun aiming for the different types of high scores. Here
| are mine:
| 
| 131 point crash - https://i.ibb.co/YdJ1c8B/131.png 426 max speed
| landing - https://i.ibb.co/5k5Csjt/Max-Speed426.png
 
| [deleted]
 
| placatedmayhem wrote:
| This feels like an achievement:                 Unbelievable, the
| crater is visible from Earth              Score: 190.2 point
| crash       Speed: 1612.3mph       Angle: 98.6deg       Time: 220
| seconds       Flips: 0       Max speed: 1612.3mph       Max
| height: 4534ft       Engine used: 15 times       Boosters used:
| 129 times       https://ehmorris.com/lander/
 
  | ehmorris wrote:
  | This is the fastest I've ever seen!
 
    | ccoggins wrote:
    | Fun game! After climbing to 1 million feet, it took over
    | 500,000 more to finally reverse direction with the ship
    | pointed down and the engines firing.
    | Unbelievable, the crater is visible from Earth
    | Score: 869.4 point crash       Speed: 7757.3mph       Angle:
    | 62.2deg       Time: 1319 seconds       Flips: 0       Max
    | speed: 7757.3mph       Max height: 1549465ft       Engine
    | used: 11 times       Boosters used: 351 times
    | https://ehmorris.com/lander/
 
      | ehmorris wrote:
      | Wow, I need to make a new crash blurb
 
| keyle wrote:
| Good fun. A couple of ideas, zoom in as you approach the landing
| site, it's hard to see the difference between 4mph and 1mph; and
| consider having no landing spots, like craters or sharp edges;
| finally, some slow flying asteroids to avoid every once and a
| while. Consider planting a little flag from previous landing or
| tombs on crash sites on restart, to have some continuity. :)
 
| antiquark wrote:
| This is like KSP but without the fun.
 
  | LorenDB wrote:
  | I wouldn't say without the fun... It makes for a good
  | reinforcement of my landing skillz.
 
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(page generated 2023-03-05 23:00 UTC)