Fly a small ship, shoot the drifting rocks and dodge the pieces. Each wave adds a rock, a saucer shoots back. Keyboard or on-screen buttons.
What is Space Rocks?
Space Rocks is a space shooter in which you fly a small triangular ship, shoot drifting space rocks into smaller and smaller pieces, and dodge the fragments until the field is clear. Each cleared field brings a new wave with one more large rock, and now and then a flying saucer crosses the screen and fires back.
The ship moves the way objects move in space. Thrust pushes it in the direction it is facing, and when you let go it keeps drifting at the same speed. Learning to fly with momentum is the core skill of the game.
How to play Space Rocks
You turn the ship left or right, fire thrust to accelerate, and shoot. The playing field wraps around on all sides: anything that leaves one edge, including your ship, the rocks and the shots, comes back on the opposite edge. The field takes the shape of your screen.
Holding the fire button shoots continuously, about three shots per second, with up to ten shots on screen at once. Each shot flies for about a second and a half and then fades. Shots also carry the ship's own speed, so a shot fired while flying forward travels further.
Large rocks split into three medium rocks when hit, medium rocks split into three small ones, and small rocks are destroyed. A large rock is worth 20 points, a medium one 60 and a small one 180. Breaking one large rock all the way down produces 13 rocks and 1,820 points in total.
The first wave has two large rocks, and each new wave adds one more, up to twelve. A saucer appears every 30 to 60 seconds, drifts across the field away from the rocks and fires in random directions. Hitting it scores 200 points. Its shots can also break rocks, but you get no points for those.
Your game has three ships. A collision with a rock, the saucer or one of its shots costs one (the rock you hit breaks too, with no points). There are no extra ships. After a loss, a new ship waits until the middle of the field is clear of rocks and the saucer, so you never respawn into a collision.
Space Rocks strategy: how to score high
Play like a turret. The safest way to play is to stay near the centre, turn and shoot, and use thrust only to dodge. Because the ship keeps drifting, every burst of thrust has to be cancelled later by turning around and thrusting the other way. Short taps keep your speed under control.
Break one rock at a time. Hitting several large rocks in quick succession fills the screen with medium and small rocks moving in every direction. Split one large rock, finish its pieces, then move on to the next. This keeps the field readable and lets you collect the 180-point small rocks safely.
Remember the wrap. Rocks leaving one edge reappear on the other, often right behind you. The same rule works in your favour: shots crossing an edge continue on the far side, so you can hit a rock near the opposite edge without flying to it.
Respect the saucer. It shoots in random directions, so it is more dangerous when it is close. Shoot it from a distance when you have a clear line, and treat it as a bonus worth 200 points. Since its shots can break rocks, it can also clear things for you, though without giving you points.
Never ram. Flying into a rock breaks it, but you lose a ship and score nothing. With only three ships and no extra lives, every loss counts. If a rock is heading straight at you and you cannot shoot it in time, a short burst of thrust to the side is usually enough.
Waves and difficulty
Space Rocks has a single mode. Difficulty rises through the waves: more large rocks mean more fragments, and from wave eleven onward you face twelve large rocks every time. There is a one-second pause between waves and after you lose a ship, which gives you time to get your bearings.
Some versions of this kind of game include a hyperspace jump, shields or bonus ships at certain scores. This one keeps a simpler set: turn, thrust, fire and three ships for the whole game.
Where space rock shooters come from
The rock-splitting space shooter comes from Atari's 1979 arcade game designed by Lyle Rains and Ed Logg. It used a vector display that drew sharp glowing lines, and its rules of momentum, screen wrap and rocks that split in pieces became one of the best known designs in arcade history.
Our Space Rocks is based on an open-source HTML5 version written by Doug McInnes in 2010 and released under the MIT license. We rewrote it for Hevagames, kept its ship handling, rock sizes, scoring and saucer behaviour, drew everything as vector lines and added on-screen buttons for touch screens.
Play Space Rocks free on Hevagames
Space Rocks runs in the browser on phones, tablets and computers, with no download. On a computer you turn with the left and right arrows or A and D, thrust with the up arrow or W and fire with Space. On a touch screen four on-screen buttons appear: turn left, turn right, thrust and fire. You can hold several at once, for example thrust and fire together, and a pad button at the top switches them on or off.
You can pause with P, Esc or the pause button. Your best score and your on-screen button setting are saved on your device. The game is silent and follows the light or dark theme of the site.
How to play
- 1Turn the ship, thrust to move and fire at the rocks. The field wraps around: leave one edge and you come back on the other.
- 2Big rocks split into three medium ones, medium into three small ones, and small ones break apart. Big rocks score 20, medium 60, small 180.
- 3Clear every rock to start the next wave, which has one more big rock (up to 12).
- 4Now and then a saucer crosses the field and shoots in random directions. Hitting it scores 200.
- 5You have three ships. Touching a rock, the saucer or its shots costs a ship.
Controls
Tips
- Small rocks are worth the most but are the hardest to hit.
- Short bursts of thrust are easier to control; the ship keeps drifting.
- A new ship appears in the centre only when no rock is close to it.
