Lunorbit Deluxe
The original jam version of Lunorbit came in second place in PlayJam 7 (and is still pay-what-you-want on Itch if you want to try it). This Deluxe version on Catalog adds another ship with its own moves, a combo system, rebalanced difficulty, and the all-important online leaderboards. It is a tight, focused game about zipping around the moon and defending it from rocks that are headed right for it. You do this by driving right through the asteroids with your own powerful, Sun Crusher-esque ship. The lunar gravity affects every move you make, and mastering the momentum swings as you approach and retreat from the moon during a perpetual orbit will be key to staying in control.
The whole thing is controlled by the crank exclusively, and it’s very minimal. The graphics are almost like Asteroids vector graphics, and the various rocks hurtling through space toward your moon are just white blobs. You start a round by rotating to the left or right to choose one of two ships, then you start just thrusting around automatically. All speed is controlled by your angle to the moon, and the moon’s “health” is shown by what phase the moon is in. It starts full, then goes waxing or waning, then a sliver, then a new moon means you only get one hit left! Each rock that hits the moon causes a shockwave that eliminates all other rocks within a certain radius, but that’ll only buy you a few seconds of reprieve.
The crank controls are spot-on – it reminds me a bit of the very first game of Season One: Whitewater Wipeout. In that game, I ALSO had no idea what I was doing on the first round (there, I immediately crashed, while here, I quickly went wayyyyy too far out into orbit). But after a few rounds, you get really good at the fine control that the game asks for and the crank allows. It’s important not to get too far away from the moon, or your speed on the rebound will be far too high and you won’t have any control over where you’re going.
The only problem with the game, really, is that it’s very slight. There is just the one repeatable level and two ships to choose from (one has a sort of bouncing bullet that you can shoot and catch, which will orbit the moon alongside you and destroy rocks itself). There’s not even a title screen – it just opens with the dev logo and then the ship selection. But if you want to get right into it and just play your Playdate for a few minutes, it’s a perfect pick. It’s like Super Hexagon. You’ll be really bad at first, then you’ll get better slowly and maybe live for one full minute, and then you’ll really want to start chasing those people at the top of the leaderboards. It’s not a large game, but the focused game that is there has 0% fat.
(Released May 6, 2025, on Catalog. Free jam version released March 10, 2025, on Itch. Copy provided by developer.)