Lunar Patrol

The moon's night side. One buggy, three wheels, and a horizon full of things that want you stopped. Craters break open in front of you, real impact craters with raised rims and terraced walls, deep enough to swallow the buggy whole. Tanks dig in and shell you from range. Striders come over the ridge on three legs, tall enough that a low shot passes clean underneath. Saucers strafe overhead. Trains of linked fliers snake across the sky in one long chain. And every so often the sky itself comes down: a meteor, burning all the way in, digging a fresh crater in the ground up ahead. Tilt the phone to drive: forward speeds you up, level holds whatever you have got, and tilting back brakes you to a stop and then backs you up. Jump sits under your left thumb, and there are two triggers under the right: a laser that fires flat ahead and a mortar that lobs straight up. They share one heat sink. Lean on either and the gun jams, and a jammed gun just coughs at you until it cools. Pick your shots. (Prefer keys? Turn tilt off and the pad grows a brake and a throttle.) BUNKER MISSIONS Every few levels the road ends at an enemy bunker behind a barrier that runs all the way up to the sky. You cannot jump it and you cannot shoot through it. Only a plasma bomb opens it, and the plasma bomb is somewhere behind you. Back up, get it, drive it in, and be well clear when it goes. GO BACK FOR IT The buggy does not only run forward. Stop dead, reverse, line up the jump again. Missed a fuel cell? It is still hanging there. LEARN IT IN FIVE SECONDS Two thumbs. The left one drives and jumps, the right one shoots. No tutorial, no menus between you and the game. READ IT AT A GLANCE Everything is drawn in the same near-black and lit only at the edges, and the edge colour tells you what a thing is. Red hunts you. Magenta is the elite hardware — the striders and the chained fliers. Pale blue is terrain — jump it. Green is the thing you came back for. Cyan is you. You will never wonder what a thing on screen is for. BUILT TO BE REPLAYED Levels get longer and meaner, and the sky changes colour as you cross into new regions. Checkpoints keep you honest without sending you back to the start. Game Center leaderboards and achievements if you want to know where you stand. PLAYS ANYWHERE No account, no ads, no internet needed. Works on iPhone and iPad, in landscape, with everything running on your device. FREE TO PLAY, HONESTLY Two minutes a day free, in full — no locked levels, no energy meters. After that your buggy is stuck at double speed until tomorrow, which is playable but punishing. One in-app purchase removes the limit permanently. That's the only purchase in the app, and there are no subscriptions.