In early testing

Nerd Launch

A gravity-slingshot rescue game

Pull the ship back, let go, and let gravity carry it to a stranded friend. Then bring them home on the fuel you have left. A spin-off set in the Find the Nerd universe, built with its worlds, its starship, its sounds and its music.

The mission

Mission brief

Zuly is stranded on Signal Shard. Wait for the window, then throw.

Zuly Zenith, who runs the day-to-day of the N.E.R.D. Initiative in Find the Nerd, is stuck on a far world. You fly out and bring her home. Otto, the keeper who writes every rescue as a line in his book, closes the line when she is back.

It shares Find the Nerd's storybook tone: Warm stakes, never grim.

How it plays

Aim like a slingshot. Press near the ship and pull back. A dotted line shows the path the ship will really take, and ends in one word: Capture, Crash or Adrift.
Let go. Gravity does the rest, from the sun and from every world.
Time it. The worlds keep moving on their orbits while you aim, so when you launch matters as much as how.
Correct in flight. You get up to two burns: Press on the ship, drag, release.
Arrive gently. Come in slowly enough inside a world's ring and the ship brakes into orbit.
Out and back on one tank. A rescue is two legs, and both share the same fuel. Every throw and every burn spends some, and the cost of a pull shows while you hold it.
Stars for fuel left. Three above half a tank, two above a quarter, one otherwise.

You fail by hitting a world or the sun, by drifting out of the sector, or by flying sixty seconds without reaching anything.

The sector

One level so far. A small sun at the centre, and three worlds circling it, each spinning on a leaning axis.

Home

Landing Grid

A cube with a landing pad. Where you start, and where the rescue ends.

In the way

Cube Yard

An octahedron with a fuel station, sitting between you and the rescue.

The rescue

Signal Shard

A tetrahedron with an orbital lab. Zuly is waiting here.

From the build

In play

Captured from version 0.1.0, as the player sees it.

The opening view from above. A pale sun sits in the centre. Around it are a cube world with a small ship beside it inside a pale blue ring, an octahedron world, and a tetrahedron world inside a gold ring. The level name, the mission brief and the fuel bar run along the top. — The whole sector at a glance. A small sun, three worlds on their orbits, and your ship waiting at the home world.

The ship has left the cube world and trails a streak of light. A dotted line curves ahead of it to a gold ring, where the word Capture is written. — On the way out. The dotted line is the path the ship will really take, and here it ends in Capture.

The ship curls around the tetrahedron world and its gold ring, leaving a bright curved trail. The hint at the top reads Braking into orbit. — Arrive slowly enough and the ship brakes into orbit around the stranded world.

A closer look

The same scene from closer in, with the text and the fuel bar switched off. Not how the screen looks during play.

A close view of a white stone cube with a landing pad on top. A small white ship waits beside it and a pale blue ring circles them both. — Landing Grid, the home world, with its landing pad and your ship waiting beside it.

A close view of a peach tetrahedron world with a small station on one corner and a gold ring around it. A ring-shaped habitat floats in the distance and a dark round rift hangs on the sky. — Signal Shard, the far world where Zuly is stranded, with its orbital lab.

A large pale sun in the centre. On the left is the tetrahedron world in its gold ring. On the right is the cube world with its landing pad, its pale blue ring and the ship. A dark round rift hangs behind them. — The sun the whole sector turns around, with Signal Shard on the left and Landing Grid on the right.

Where it stands

Status: Version 0.1.0, one level, Android tester build

This is an early build, and it is small on purpose: One level, English only, no title screen and no saves yet. It has no accounts, no ads and no purchases, and it never goes online.

It runs on Android 7.0 or later, on a 64-bit ARM phone or tablet, in landscape. The download is about 134 MB and it installs beside Find the Nerd, not over it.

The logo, the title art and the icon are still being made.

Approved Find the Nerd testers will find it in the tester area, behind the same login. To become a tester, start at findthenerd.com.

Player two, join in

Send a signal

alf@spacenerds.com