Stellar
Fly forward forever. Dodge the asteroids, collect the stars, and watch how quickly a manageable field becomes a wall.
How to play
Your ship sits near the bottom and only moves left and right. Asteroids fall towards you at varying sizes and speeds. Touch one and the run ends. Orange stars are worth 25 points each and are safe to collect.
You score one point per frame simply for surviving, so the score is mostly a measure of how long you lasted, with stars as a bonus for taking risks.
- On a phone, drag your finger anywhere on the board and the ship follows.
- On a computer, hold the left and right arrow keys, or drag with the mouse held down.
Difficulty scales with your score in two ways at once: asteroids fall faster, and they spawn more often. Both climb continuously, so there is no plateau where the game becomes comfortable.
How to last longer
Stay in the middle by default
The edges look safe and are a trap. Against a wall you have lost half your options, so a rock arriving on your open side forces a long move across the board, straight through whatever else is falling. Return to the centre whenever nothing is threatening you.
Move early and move small
Beginners wait until a rock is close and then make a large correction, which usually puts them under a different rock. Look at the top of the screen, not at what is nearest, and start drifting as soon as you can see the gap you want. Small early adjustments beat large late ones.
Read the gaps, not the rocks
This is a mental shift that helps immediately. Instead of tracking each asteroid and asking whether it will hit you, look at the spaces between them and pick the one you intend to be in. Your job is to arrive at a gap, not to avoid objects. It converts many separate calculations into one.
Decide about stars before they arrive
A star is 25 points, worth roughly a second of survival. It is not worth much. Decide early whether a star is reachable on a path you were taking anyway, and if it is not, let it go. Most deaths at moderate scores come from lunging for a star through a gap that was closing.
Watch the big ones differently
Large asteroids fall more slowly but cover much more width, so they close off routes for longer. Small fast ones are urgent but narrow. Treat the large ones as terrain to plan around and the small ones as things to dodge.
What the game is really testing
Not reaction speed, mostly. It is testing how far ahead you look. Players who improve quickly are the ones who shift their attention from just above the ship to the top third of the screen, which converts the game from a series of emergencies into a route finding problem.
The same idea appears in Snake, where the skill is thinking about the space you are enclosing rather than the food you are chasing. In both cases the beginner watches the immediate object and the improved player watches the field.
Your best score is stored in your browser on your own device and never uploaded.
Common questions
Does the game ever end on its own?
No, it is endless. It continues until you hit an asteroid. Asteroids fall faster and spawn more frequently as your score rises, so every run ends eventually.
Are the stars worth chasing?
Each is 25 points, roughly a second of survival, so not by much. Take them when they sit on a path you were already taking. Lunging for one through a closing gap is the most common cause of death at middling scores.
Why do I keep dying at the edges?
Because at an edge you have lost half your escape options. A rock on your open side then forces a long crossing through whatever else is falling. Drift back to the centre whenever the screen is briefly clear.
Can I move up and down?
No, the ship is fixed vertically and moves only left and right. That constraint is deliberate, since it keeps the game to a single decision at a time.
What is the single biggest improvement I can make?
Look at the top of the screen rather than just above your ship, and pick the gap you intend to occupy instead of reacting to the nearest rock. It turns a series of emergencies into a route you are following.