Lunar Lander: prototype version 1 released

Here is the first released version of my Lunar Lander program. It runs under Windows and requires Direct3D 9 to be installed. I had hoped to have more of a game by my deadline but didn't have time to implement much, so I've tried to tie things off so it is relatively bug-free and playable. Once some of the holiday madness subsides I will make another release.

You can fly the orange, spherical rocket around the planet and attempt to make soft landings. There are a couple of control schemes of varying difficulty. Controls in a nutshell:

• Steer with the mouse
• Accelerate with the left mouse button
• Zoom view in/out with X/Z or 1-5
• Restart if you get stuck with R
• Esc pauses and displays additional help.

Known issues:

• Occasionally the aiming rockets will rotate the vehicle the long way around.
• It is possible to get positive feedback by pressing Tab to accelerate time while simultaneously increasing the orbit size; this will blow up the simulation and require a restart.

Once again, thanks to Scott Lembke for his Chipmunk physics engine, a heavily-modified version of which lurks within. Thanks also to my testers: Tom Elmer, Seth McNeill and David McNeill. Enjoy!

I've released a couple of other little games in the past:

• ThiefRL, an attempt to amalgamate Thief with Rogue
• SpaceRL, a very small Roguelike exploring zero-gravity movement