← MOONDAO Arcade

Gravity Slingshot

Plot a launch, add mid-course burns, and ride gravity all the way to the Moon. No twitch reflexes, no luck. Just a flight plan you build, and physics that plays out the same way every time.

🪐 Play
1

Read the field

A Moon sits on the far side, with one to a few planets in between. Each planet has gravity that bends anything passing near it.

2

Aim, then steer

Drag to set your launch angle and power, then drop up to three mid-course burns to nudge your path in flight. You see the trajectory you plan; the challenge is doing it on the least fuel.

3

Capture, don't crash

You can't just barrel into the Moon — arrive too fast and you slingshot right past. Come in slow enough (skim a planet to bleed off speed) and its gravity catches you. A real orbital capture.

Why it's fair, and why it's skill

The whole flight is deterministic: gravity is just an equation, run in fixed time-steps. The same plan on the same field always traces the same path, with nothing random mid-air. You see your own planned trajectory as you build it, and it turns green when it reaches the Moon. The skill is doing it on the least fuel: a gentle launch plus well-timed burns and gravity assists beats brute force.

Every course is generated from a seed — a number that places the Moon and the wells. The same seed is the same field for everyone, so a head-to-head race is on identical ground. When that races mode arrives, the seed will come from a commit-reveal of both players' secrets, so neither can pick a field that suits them. It's the same fairness spine as Rocket Race.

Today it is a single-player time-trial: plan your launch and mid-course burns, capture on minimum fuel. Up next: commit-reveal many-player rounds where everyone's flight plan replays against the same field.