Excuse the programmer graphics.

Controls;
F: rotate left
J: rotate right
F+J: fly up

This weeks prototype, Rocket, is a small game where you control a rocket flying up.

Idea

A couple of years ago I had a conversation with a friend of mine where we discussed a mobile game where you control a rocket or space ship by pressing either side of the screen to fire that engine of the rocket (right side of the screen for the right side engine). After all these years I decided to prototype the feeling of the rocket.

For the rocket feel I had several ideas on how it should behave. During this prototype I tested two different ways of moving the rocket which I will call: Snappy and Flowey.

Snappy

The first way of the rocket feel was using 5 set vectors in which the rocket would fly; straight ahead, 'soft' left/right turn or 'hard' left/right turn. If you press both sides of the screen you'll fly straight ahead, the left side will make you fly left and the right side will make you fly right.

A control scheme like this felt really snappy but not how I imagined a machine with boosters should feel. That brings me to the second and final way on how I felt this should work.

Flowey

In the playable prototype you'll play the flowey version. In this version if you press both sides of the screen the rocket will fly straight ahead (based on current rotation), pressing the left side of the screen will rotate it counter-clockwise and pressing the right side of the screen will rotate it clockwise.

This control scheme does feel more like how a machine like this should feel. But it took me a while to prototype both control schemes that I didn't really added game mechanics, win/lose state etc.

But for now this prototype it's just the feeling. Let me know what you think!

Rocket - Game-a-Week #3 screenshots