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Another reincarnation of the classic Moon Lander (or Lunar Lander) game
History:
June 23, 2007: Beta downloadable
June 29, 2007: Beta 2 downloadable
July 9, 2007: Beta 2 with installer downloadable
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This is a freeware version of the classic Moon Lander game with plenty of options to make the game enjoyable for anyone from Toddler to Grandpa. Enjoy!
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Screenshots
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Game Feature Settings Dialog
Selected Earth for LEM landing |
View and Control Settings Dialog
Play area size 640x480 selected |
During landing on Mars
Using the LEM |
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Final approach on the Mars
Zoomed in on the landing platform |
Landing with limited visibility
Landed on Earth with the Rocketship using the instruments |
Landing Evaluation Dialog
After successful landing on Jupiter with the Rocketship |
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Change history
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Beta 1
First release
Beta 2
Fixed CPU mode sound break ups
Fixed jerky animation in CPU mode time-to-time
Fixed wrong animation in Rocketship mode if the rocket tips over
Fixed wind arrow on instrument panel at low level wind
Added installer
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Known issues
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CPU game works only in Rocketship mode
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Features
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1 Player or CPU only (demo)
2 ship types:
- Rocket, vertical only operation
- Classic landing module (LEM, Lunar Excurson Module) with rotational operation
4 planets to choose from (Moon, Mars, Earth, Jupiter) [I know, Moon is not a planet ☺]
Zoom in on landing platform during final approach
Manual options to make landing easier or harder:
- Surface type
- Average landing platform size
- Initial fuel amount
- Wind [even if in reality there's no wind on the Moon]
- Visibility from full visibility to blackout
Automatic selection of above options for a required difficulty level
Keyboard and analog joystick support
Game area size from 320x200 to full screen
Initial zoom from 1/2 size to full screen
Flip vertical and horizontal controls per user preference
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Guide
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Selecting Landing Options
The Landing Options dialog is accessable at any time from the game. During landing you can access it from the Settings menu. Prior to landing this dialog is presented automatically. Changes to settings on this dialog will immediately take effect and the game area behind the dialog will immediately present those changes.
The following options can be modified on this dialog:
- Player type (User or CPU)
- CPU mode will use the built-in AI to land the ship
- User mode will let the player land using the keyboard or joystick controls
- Game type (Rocketship or LEM)
- In rocketship mode the controls work left-right and up. Rocketship is not turning during landing, it's always vertical. It is easier to land in rocketship mode and hence it is recommended to younger players.
- In LEM mode the controls turn the ship and accelerate it towards the tip of the ship. It is generally harder to land in LEM mode.
- Difficulty: This slider lets you choose from pre-defined difficulty settings. the higher the bar is, the more difficult to land the ship in general. When moving the bar, you can see that the corresponding other settings change. When releasing the bar, the new settings will be applied and the game area behind the dialog will immediately present the new settings.
- Sourface roughness: This slider lets you set the size of the peaks on the surface. The higher the bar is set, the higher the peaks. Higher peaks surrounding the landing platforms will make landing harder in general.
- Platform size: This slider lets you set the average platform size from rather wide on the lower end, to exactly the ship size on the higher end. If the bar is closer to the high end, the platforms in average will be smaller, if the bar is closer to the lower end, the platforms in average will be larger. If you move the bar to the low end, all the platforms are set to the possible widest, if you move it to the high end, all the platforms are set to the possible narrowest. If the bar is in the middle, the platforms will randomly be selected from all possible sizes.
- Fuel amount: Choose from full, 3/4, 1/2 or 1/4 tank initial fuel amount.
- Wind: Choose from no-wind to strong-wind conditions. Wind conditions will present ambient wind as well as wind gusts randomly. The current wind level can be seen on the bottom of the instrument panel (top-left corner of the game are) as a horizontal arrow. The length and direction of the green arrow shows the ambient wind. The red tip of the arrow shows the current gusts strengt.
- Planet: Choose from 4 available planets: Moon (OK, it's not a planet), Mars, Earth, Jupiter. Gravity and color conditions are simluated properly. The higher the gravity is, the harder it is to land the ship.
- Visibility: Choose from 3 possible visibility factors: full, partial or blackout. Partial visibility require you to do the approach using the instrument panel on the top-left corner of the game area, but then the actual landing can be done visually. Blackout conditions require you to do the entire landing using instruments only, which can be quite hard, depending on the other settings (surface, platform size, wind, planet gravity). For tips for using the instrument panel, please see the Landing with Instruments Only section below.
Selecting Control Options
The game can be controlled with the keyboard or with an analog joystick. The selection can be canged at the Controls section of the View & Controls Settings dialog. The joystick selection is disabled if there's no joystick connected to the machine. It is possible to connect joystick to the machine after starting the game.
If the joystick is selected, the right and left direction of the joystick will move or turn the ship right or left, the up direction of the joystick will lift the ship. In this case the vertical and the horizontal controls can be flipped if the user is more confortable that way.
If the keyboard is selected, the right and left arrow keys move or rotate the ship right or left, and the space key will lift the ship. In this case only the horizontal controls can be flipped.
Selecting View Options
View options of the game include the game screen size and the default zoom. The game by default starts full screen. At the View section of the View & Controls Settings dialog it is possible to select a smaller game screen size to shorten approach time and practice final landing more. In order to see the smaller area better, it can be magnified 2x to full screen. The Best Fit option will magnify the game screen as much as possible without impacting the screen aspect ratio. The Full Screen option will magnify the game screen to full screen.
Landing Visually
If you chose to see the game screen fully, you will of course land visually. However you probably still will use the instrument panel to ensure that the speed and rotation of the ship is within landing parameters. You can read more about the instrument panel below in the Landing with Instruments Only section.
There are a few things that are worth mentioning for landing the ship.
- The entire ship needs to sit on the landing platform the end of landing. If any part of the ship is outside, the ship will tip over.
- Landing lights turn on automatically once the ship gets close enough to a landing platform. Landing lights are especially helpful during partial visibility or balckout approach as they give visual clue about the location and the size of the platform.
- The minimum platform size is the size of the ship. Landing on the smallest platforms earns the most points.
Landing with Instruments Only
Landing in limitied visibility conditions can be done by using the instrument panel only. The instrument panel is located in the top left corner of the game area. It has 5 instruments: acceleration, tilt, ILS, fuel and wind.
- Acceleration: shows the vertical and horizontal speed vector direction of the ship relative to the ground. If the arrow is green, the ship is moving within the landing speed parameters. If the arrow is red, the ship is moving too fast to land. If both horizontal arrows are green, the ship is not moving horizontally. In order to land the ship, both the vertical and the horizontal acceleration should be green.
- Tilt: the arrow between the acceleration arrows shows if the the tilt level of the ship is within the landing parameters. If the ship tilts sideways too much to land, this arrow turns red. If you land the ship when the arrow is red, the ship will tip over and explode.
- ILS: this instrument lets you see the position of the ship relative to the closest landing platform. The instrument shows a horizontal line, that shows the ship's vertical position. If the ship is above the landing platform, the line is above the center point of the instrument, if the ship is below the landing platform, the line is below the center point of the instrument. Similarly the horizontal line shows how the ship's position compares to the middle of the platform. If the line is right from the instrument's center point, the ship's center point is right from the platform's center point, if the line is left from the instrument's center point, the ship's center point is left from the platform's center point.
- Fuel: this vertical bar on the right side of the instrument panel shows the remaining fuel amount in the tank. When you have only 10% or less left, the bar color changes to red.
- Wind indicator: the arrow on the bottom of the instrument panel shows the direction and the strength of the current wind. The green part of the arrow is ambient wind, the red part is the current wind gust. The wind conditions you select on the Landing Options dialog influence the highest possible wind, but wind conditions change constantly in the possible range.
In order to approach the platform with the instrument panel only, start to hover the ship sideways slowly until the ILS vertical line is on the center point. At this time start the decent slowly. If you selected partial visibility, keep an eye on the game area, the planet surface will show up as you get close to the ground. The landing lights on the platform that you approach will turn on automatically as you get close enough to the platform. The landing lights are visible from further than the platform itself. You can use these lights to guide you during the final approach. In full blackout mode the position of the ship is visible only as a dot on the screen. Keep an eye on the ILS and the acceleration instruments (and the turn indicator as well if you play with the LEM). When the ILS lines cross the center point, you land. At this point the acceleartion instrument as well as the turn indicator must be in the green area. Playing in limited visual, or blackout mode is very challending and is a lot of fun. Don't be disappointed if you don't succeed first. When you land your ship in these modes, you will earn a lot more points.
How is the score calculated?
Upon succesfull landing on a platform, the final landing score is calculated and presented. The score is calculated based on landing performance and the difficulty level. The total score is the sum of these sub-scores:
- Planetary score: calculated from the base score of the selected planet (the Moon earns the smallest base score because it has the smallest gravity and Jupiter earns the largest base score because it has the largest gravity) multiplied with the following bonus values: surface bonus (the higher peaks requested the higher the surface bonus), visibility bonus (smallest for full visibility, higher for partial visibility, highest for blackout) and wind bonus (the higher wind requested the higher the wind bonus).
- Platform score: calculated from the score of the platform the ship landed on (the smaller the platform, the larger the score, this value is presented under each platform) multiplied with the requested average platform size bonus (the more courage the player has, the smaller the requested average size is and the larger the bonus).
- Fuel score: calculated from the base score of the leftover fuel multiplied by the requested fuel bonus (the less fuel was requested the higher the bonus).
- Ergonomics score: calculated from the continuity base score (the longer the ship travelled in one direction before landing without rolling to both sides, the higher the score, also if the ship came in too low and needed to lift up before landing will lower the score) multiplied with the precision bonus (the closer the ship landed to the center of the platform the higher the bonus).
If the ship tips over on the landing platform, you will still earn some points. In this case only the planetary score, the platform score and the fuel score are taken into account with 10 times divider.
In general a succesfull landing can earn about somewhere 50-300 points, depending on the difficulty and the execution. If the ship tips over, it earns about 10-20 points.
Restarting the Game
You can restart the game at any time fro the File menu's New Game menu point, or during landing by hitting the 'N' key.
Ending the Game
You can end the game from the File menu's Exit menu point, or from the setting dialogs by clicking on the Exit game button.
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Download
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You need Windows Installer 2.0 for installing Moon Lander. If your installation fails, I recommend that you download the latest version of the Windows Installer from the Microsoft Download Center or a mirror site.
You need to uninstall any previous version prior to the installation of a newer version.
If you are using any popup-killer you need to temporarily disable it in order to continue with download!
Please refer to your popup-killer's guide for instructions.
Most popup-killers can be temporarily disabled by holding down the Left Ctrl key or both the Left Ctrl and Left Alt keys while clicking on the link.
Use the following link to download the Moon Lander installer.
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