Outwit gravity, race the clock, explore new worlds.

purchase at itch.io or Steam

You've landed at the Lunar Research station.
Too bad you *crash* landed. o.O

Crashed lander is a gravity-based arcade game inspired by classics like Lunar Lander and Space Taxi. You'll pilot your craft from pad to pad trying to beat your best time – then flirt with that fine line between speed and control

If you’re brave enough to try Hard Mode you’ll be flopping around like a QWOPy, low gravity turtle. With a little practice you’ll be zippin' around doin' barrel rolls. You can also pilot your lander in virtual reality with your Oculus Rift, HTC Vive, or other SteamVR compatible headset.

You’ll see sites from the cutting edge of fractal mathematics – bizarre, organic shapes, arcane archaeological digs, and all manner of WTFderful alien vistas. Each level is a detailed hand-crafted landscape that encourages the player to explore - and goof around!

“Crashed lander is really great! Play it with the autopilot off though ”
Bennett Foddy, foddy.net

“...it's set in a wonderfully bizarre alien world that's absolutely worth exploring,”
Konstantinos Dimopoulos, indiegames.com 

“Crashing is just as rewarding as landing, which transforms Crashed Lander from an interesting experiment to a delightful low-gravity playground.”
Richard Moss, web.appstorm.net 

"a core game flight mechanic that will keep you entertained for hours"
David Whelan, VirtualRealityReviewer.com

One of the top 10 VR experiences of 2014

The full version includes:

  • 25 levels to conquer and explore in Pad Hopper mode
  • 25 levels in Ring Runner mode - fly through custom courses
  • Full VR support. Windows version plays on monitor, Rift, and Vive! 
  • Full (xbox 360) controller support
  • Hidden collectibles on every level
  • Earn stars and track your progress through all 45 levels
  • An hour of spacey, glitch-hop music - mp3's included!
  • Steam Achievements and Global Leaderboards
  • Windows, Mac OSX, and Linux versions

Crashed Lander is now available on Steam!

Changelog:

November 22nd, 2017 - v3.1

  • Steam Achievements! There are 11 new goals to work for - from simple things like earning 3 stars on a level to completing all 50 levels in Hard Mode.
  • Global Leaderboards. Probably the most requested feature from players is finally here. The leaderboards are still empty, so now is a great time to make your mark. Also a great time to get the Number One achievement.  
  • Game progress now saved in the Cloud. You'll keep any progress you've made with the old system, and now it will also be stored on the Steam servers. 
  • Upgraded game engine to Unity v2017.2. Faster physics and better performance in VR.
  • Improved the Tutorial level. More info about the controls, quieter video.
  • New pause menu that also shows the global/local high scores
  • New Ringer Runner level 23. The last one was *way* too hard. 
  • Fixed a problem on main menu with launching a level more than once
  • Lander now tumbles and rolls once one of the tanks is broken.

November 7th - v3.0

  • New levels - 50 in total!
  • Options menu. Change graphics settings, FOV, V-Synch, audio levels, and other fiddly bits.
  • Improved VR support. Now works easily with monitor, Rift, and Vive. 
  • VR comfort modes. People who are prone to motion sickness can use Tunnel Vision or the Cam Cage for a less woozy experience.
  • New Tutorial level. Cleaner and more informative.
  • First person camera mode. Lots of requests for this one. 
  • Remastered Levels. I've improved the look and feel of many levels with updated models, better lightmaps, and sparklier particles.

Auguest 5th - v3.0beta3 

  • Options menu!
  • New graphics quality settings for shadows, anti-aliasing, texture resolution, VR render scale
  • New comfort modes for VR - Tunnel Vision and Cam Cage. 

July 31st - v3.0beta2

  • Fixed menu navigation routes 
  • D-pad now works to control menus 
  • Toggle vertical synch with Delete key (monitor mode only) 
  • Music should now play through level load if it is enabled. 
  • New lightmaps on all levels that use them. Still trying to get the hang of the lightmapping tool in Unity 5, but this batch is looking better. Still some ugly jaggies on the Menger levels especially.

July 28th - v3.0beta

  • Spiffy new menus - the old ones were wonky. Built the new ones using Unity's UI tools and a little more planning.  
  • Cool 360 panoramas give you a glimpse of the level before loading. 
  • Improved VR support. Now works easily on monitor, Rift, and Vive. 
  • First person camera. Often requested and quite a bit of fun. Switch cameras with the B button or C key
  • Pause button fully pauses the game. The slow motion was neat but hard to go get a cup of coffee before you crashed and burned. 
    May 3rd - testing Vive support
  • Added experimental support for Vive and SteamVR via OpenVR @ Unity 5.4

March 28th, 2016 - Rift launch update

  • New beta version with support for Oculus runtime v1.3

October 6th - v2.6 on Unity 5

  • Updated game engine from Unity4 to Unity5 
  • Updated to Steamworks.net version 2.6 
  • Convex mesh colliders on all game objects 
  • Re-configured all active obejcts with Physics based joints and springs 
  • Tri-planar shaders on all terrains - no more texture stretching 
  • New version of the Outside In level. 
  • Oculus Rift is now detected automatically. Use 'Play On Rift' launch option until the beta makes it to the main branch. 
  • Fixed problems with cursor on pause menu 
  • New fog effect on Jungle Fog levels

July 6th - v2.6 beta

  • New, smoother camera. The cam now zooms out a little as the lander speeds up and smooths out the transition when you turn sharply. Looks nice and should be more comfortable for some people in VR. 
  • New keys to control the gamepad deadzone - 0 and 9. This should help folks who have old, very loose gamepads. Player suggestion. 
  • New key to toggle inverted mousleook - V. Player Suggestion. 
  • New version of the Sky is Falling and Ring Runner Twins levels. The landscapers finally came by and spruced the place up. :) New particle effects on these levels, too. 
  • New path the the Ring Runner Horns level. 
  • Optimized the Jungle Fog levels. The old version was causing poor performance on the Rift, so I cleaned it up a bit and put in a more efficient fog effect. 
  • Both game modes now share the same control scripts. This will make it easier to make changes in the future. 
  • New Brain Blinks splash screen on load. Skippable with spacebar or mouseclick. 
  • Music is now off on the tutorial level. Player Suggestion. 
  • Fixed a glitch where game gets stuck in slow-motion mode when restarting. 
  • New particle effects when the lander explodes

February 2nd, 2015- v2.5!

  • VR and Monitor version are now re-united under one package
  • Recent changes now included for Monitor users including smoother physics, FPS counter, new skyboxes, Fade in/out at beginning/end of each level
  • 10 new Ring Runner levels! Total of 44 levels now
  • Columns level replaced with new Overview level
  • Switcheroo level is now easier and less ‘Rage-Quitty’ :)
  • New reward system. Get faster times to earn more stars. Earn 135 stars in Normal mode and 45 in Hard mode.
  • New tracking system for reward stars and collectible widgets
  • Info signs on Main Menu to show the number of stars earned and widgets found
  • Info sign and countdown timer at the beginning of each level
  • New score display and celebration when completing levels
  • Collectible widgets now on all levels, including Ring Runners. 135 widgets to find.
  • New thruster particle effects - kick up dust when near the ground and some surfaces
  • New fire particles
  • Optimized performance: Trimmed some bloated objects, reduced some texture sizes, now using Forward rendering instead of Deferred, simpler Terrain shader
  • Dynamic text now driven by Unity 4.6 UI features
  • Time Trial mode is now called Pad Hopper mode
  • Main Menu now remembers if you were selecting from Pad Hooper or Ring Runner levels.
  • No more fuel high score on Pad Hopper mode. Too cluttered to have two scores for one level. Fuel will return in a Sooper Sekret new mode coming soon.
  • Key Bindings now have more sensible names
  • Change Field of View in monitor mode with the bracket keys.
  • New tutorial video. I decided to host this on YouTube so that I could easily add Closed Captions in multiple languages.
  • Hard mode indicator now more visible on Lander
  • Smoother mouselook movement for Monitor mode

October 29th - v2.1VR 

  • Updated the full VR version of the game with SDK 0.4.3 plus the new smoother physics, toggle timewarp, and FPS counter.
  • Also changed the background stars from hack-y spheres to full skyboxes. Added a 'blackout' screen during level load for more comfortable VR viewing while switching levels. 
  • Changed the version name. the dk2x thing was a bit unwieldy. Next update of the demo will be called 2.1VRdemo.  Still hoping to bring the monitor and VR versions back into one program - bit of a mess right now as I have 4 separate versions of the game project. o.O

October 28th - dk2f

  • Added a Frames Per Second counter. Toggle it on/off with the = key.

October 25th - dk2e

  • Updated the ship physics - it's even smoother now. Thanks to BaseDeltaZer0 on reddit for the reminder about the Interpolate setting!

October 25th - dk2d

  • Updated to use the 0.4.3 SDK 
  • Changed the Physics sim to run at 75 FPS instead of 30 FPS. The ship handling might feel slightly different if you're used to the older version - but should look much smoother since it now matches the display on the DK2.
  • Adjusted the gamepad controls. Turning left and right while also thrusting should be a little smoother.
  • New Linux build - experimental

September 7th - dk2c

  • Updated Windows versions to use 'universal' build of the game that should work on both 32 and 64 bit versions of Windows. This seems to have fixed the problem some folks were having with head tracking. If you are using a 32bit version and have any trouble please let me know and I'll get you a 32bit only version.

September 6th - dk2c

  • No changes other than updating to the newest 0.4.2 SDK from Oculus.

August 14th - v2.0dk2b

  • New build with the Oculus 0.4.1 SDK. Should work for more people in Direct To Rift mode
  • Built for Direct X 11. If your video card doesn't support dx11 you can use the -force-d3d9 flag to force dx9 mode. http://docs.unity3d.com/Manual/CommandLineArguments.html
  • TimeWarp seems to be working now so I turned that on.
  • Some of my reflective shaders aren't working with the new SDKs. I'll put the shine back on some of the objects in future versions.

August 4th - v2.0dk2

  • Added support for Oculus Rift DK2 and the new 0.4 SDK disply drivers.
  • Removed toggle for monitor. Oculus Rift only on this version.
  • Had to change some of my reflective shaders due to lighting glitch. 
  • Still need to black out loading screen between levels. Will add that to future version.

June 17th: - v2.0!

  • New time trial levels: Columns, Switcheroo,  ProcGen Hills, Caged, Credits - 24 total. 
  • New game mode with 10 levels: Ring Runner
  • Possible fix for phantom gamepad inputs on Linux systems

June 2nd: Beta2

  • 3 More levels - Crowd Control, Seeker's Canyon, Rollin'. 19 Levels total!
  • Fixed main menu for 4:3 screens
  • Fixed camera view on pause menu
  • Fixed build for 32 bit Windows systems
  • ESC key now resets VR and camera on main menu
  • Fix for mouse interfering with gamepad or Oculus menu selection.
  • Fix (I hope) for phantom gamepad inputs

May 18th - New Beta version!

  • Another new level: Sky is Falling. Total of 16 levels
  • SwingSet level is now not quite as difficult
  • Tweaks to the gamepad controls. 
  • Fix for the Help option on the main menu
  • Full soundtrack is now included

April 23rd - New Alpha version for pre-purchasers and indieGoGo supporters 

  • Added 5 new levels: Hollow, Tippy Tops, Orbits, BasketBalls, SwingSet
  • Tweaked the gamepad controls - less deadspace
  • New main menu - again (^_^)
  • Various performance improvements, fewer textures, smaller textures
  • More graphics setttings on launch
  • note: the XL Demo is now called Alpha version, free version called Demo version

March 25th - Updated XL demo/alpha

  • Full xbox 360 controller support - you can play without touching keyboard or mouse
  • New, simpler main menu
  • Some levels optimized for better performance
  • better fog effects and more plants on Jungle Fog
  • Removed the grabbing tentacles from Jungle Fog  - too glitchy
  • Fixed an error that was switching on VR mode without input from user

February 24th  - XL demo released

  • 4 new levels - GravPads, Jungle Fog, Menger Maze, and Inside Out
  • More music
  • fuel-based high scores
  • better display of high scores at beginning and end of level

February 7th

  • Friendly, more responsive controls in Normal flight mode
  • Explodier explosions
  • It's now more obvious when you've failed and need to restart the level

January 29th, 2014 - Crashed Lander v2 demo released to go along with the IndieGoGo campaign.

  • 6 playable levels in time attack mode
  • Oculus Rift support