Tap squares on a cratered moon grid to splat three hidden starships, with only misses counting against you.
Crater Space is a quick game of deduction set on the gray, cratered face of a moon. Three enemy starships are cloaked somewhere on an eight-by-eight grid, and your task is to splash paint on them, launching one missile at a single square per shot. Every tap is a small guess, and every wrong guess is counted.
The game was designed for phones held upright and was made for the mobile category of the js13k contest in 2021.
Rules in brief
The fleet has three ships, with lengths of two, three and four squares. They lie in rows or stand in columns, never on a slant, and they never share a square.
Pick a target and tap it. Green paint marks empty ground, and one of the 24 missiles under the grid goes dark. A pink splat means you struck part of a ship, and that shot costs you nothing. A yellow number below the rack keeps a tally of your misses. When every part of a ship turns pink, one of the ship icons in the lower left goes black.
How a round ends
You finish by finding all three ships or by using up every missile on misses. Either way, the game then reveals the ships as faint outlines for you to review.
What counts is your miss total, and smaller is better. Beat your previous low and you set a new record, which appears as RECORD on the board and is saved in your browser. A new record is greeted with gold confetti, and a clear that does not beat it gets colorful confetti instead.
There are two PLAY buttons on the menu. Both deal a random layout with the same rules. They only differ in how the game seeds its random numbers.
Strategy notes
- After a pink splat, the rest of that ship must be straight up, down, left or right of it. Test those four squares first.
- Once you have two hits in a line, keep firing along it until you miss, then return to the other end.
- While searching, fire at every other square in a checkerboard pattern. The smallest ship is two squares long, so it cannot slip through.
- Late in the round, skip any gap too small to hold the ships you still need to find.
- Keep track of which lengths are done. If the long ship is finished, the others can hide in tighter spaces.
Why it’s worth a try
It takes seconds to learn, and the 24-miss limit keeps every round tense without dragging on. Chasing a lower record gives you a clear reason to play one more board.
Controls
| Action | Mouse | Touch |
|---|---|---|
| Start a game from the menu | Click either PLAY button | Tap either PLAY button |
| Fire a splat missile at a square | Click the square | Tap the square |
| Play again after a round | Click PLAY AGAIN | Tap PLAY AGAIN |
Crater Space FAQ
Is Crater Space a one-player game?
Yes. You play alone against a hidden layout that the game deals at random. There is no opponent firing back at you. Your result is how many times you missed, and the goal is to beat your own best.
How long does a round take?
A round is short. It ends as soon as you have uncovered all three ships, or once all 24 missiles are used up on misses. The grid has only 64 squares, so a round never asks for more than a few dozen taps.
Does it work on a phone or Chromebook?
Yes. It was designed for a phone held upright, and each action is a single tap. On a Chromebook or laptop, a click does the same job. Your record is stored in the browser on whichever device you use.
What do I see if I run out of missiles?
The round ends, and the ships you did not finish are drawn as pale shapes so you can tell where they sat. Tap PLAY AGAIN to get a fresh random layout and try again.
