Rockets & Research is a (currently solo) indie project about orbital mechanics, puzzles & strategic planning.

I was hoping to be as open as possible in the development of this game but it’s a bit of an experiment for me, so please do bear with me while I get the hang of things. In due course I’ll try to set up things like a playtester signup form and a Discord server for anyone interested in following my development journey. I may even try this whole “streaming” thing all the kids are talking about these days, although tbh I find the prospect of doing that a litte terrifying!

As a little bit of background, these are the design pillars I’m trying to focus on for this project:

I’ve been deep diving into the Fundamentals of Astrodynamics to better understand the math but don’t worry, you (hopefully) won’t need an advanced math degree or anything to play! The main way you’ll interact with the game is by adding instructions to a timeline in order to build rockets and send them off around the solar system to fulfill various objectives.

The game is in a super super early stage of development, so isn’t really playable just yet. I don’t even have any idea if the core mechanics I have planned will actually be “fun” or not… The only way to find out if this idea works at all will be do build out a very basic prototype and to get people playing & testing it. If that sounds like something you might be up for, subscribe to this site’s RSS feed or give me a follow on Twitter so that you can be the first to know!