Lunar Rescue :: Overview

People are stuck on the moon. I have no idea why. Let's just go rescue them anyway.

At some point in your life, you've probably played "Lunar Lander" or one of its many variants. You know, the one where you have to deftly pilot a space craft down to the surface of the moon, carefully using your thrusters to overcome gravity and trying not to crash into the walls, hit the landing pad too hard or run out of fuel. Lunar Rescue is pretty much the same thing but with a few tweaks. And some particles.

launch button

This is another project I've started to scratch my itch for some fun coding, and test myself to see if I've got what it takes to complete a game from beginning to end. I love to program, but paying the bills means that my day job drags me away from this. My previous attempt a few years back was a PacMan game which was an exercise worth repeating, but this time I want to do something a bit more polished. It needs to have all of the following:

  1. More originality. Extending an existing concept is ok (which I've done) but it has to have some original ideas and content. In other words, not just a straight up clone.
  2. Some form of tutorial to ease the player into the game. I want this to happen while the game is in play and not just implement a series of text screens.
  3. Smoother transitions between game states. It can't be too jarring, and must allow for pretty explosions effects to continue as the player is being told how bad they are at the game.
  4. A nice end screen, including credits. Something a little special.
  5. Lots of levels and an editor for others to create them. This will mean being able to test the levels during the editing process to get a feel of how hard they are to play. Also, being able to distribute your creations to others is important.

If you want to play the game just click on the big button above. There is a also a High Score Table for viewing the top ten scores, as well as a Level Editor for creating your own levels. Otherwise you can read further ahead for some boring technical stuff. Because you're one of those people that would rather read about a game than actually play it.