Crater Space
Crater Space is a short hide-and-seek puzzle on the gray surface of a moon. Three enemy ships are cloaked somewhere on an eight-by-eight grid, and you reveal them by firing paint missiles at one square at a time.
Jasper Renow-Clarke made it for the mobile category of the js13k 2021 contest, so it is designed for a phone held upright. It also works in any desktop browser tab with a mouse.
How to play Crater Space
Tap PLAY to begin. The grid sits at the top, a rack of 24 missiles is below it, and three ship icons in the corner count the ships you have uncovered.
The ships are two, three and four squares long. Each lies in a straight line, across or down, and none of them overlap. Each tap launches one missile. Green paint marks empty ground and darkens one missile in the rack, while pink paint means you struck a ship, and that shot is free.
When a ship is fully pink, one icon fills in. You finish by finding all three ships or lose by missing 24 times. Afterward the ship outlines appear faintly so you can see what you missed.
Controls
| Action | Keyboard | Mouse | Touch |
|---|---|---|---|
| Start a round | — | Click a PLAY button | Tap a PLAY button |
| Fire at a square | — | Click the square | Tap the square |
| Play again | — | Click PLAY AGAIN | Tap PLAY AGAIN |
Tips
- Hunt on a checkerboard pattern. Since no ship is shorter than two squares, a checkerboard pattern of shots is sure to touch each one.
- A pink hit means a ship is close, so probe the spaces directly above, below and beside it. A second hit tells you whether the ship runs across or down.
- When two hits line up, follow that row or column until you miss, then return and work the other end.
- Count what is left. If only the two-square ship remains, any pocket smaller than two squares is safe to ignore.
- Corners and edges hold fewer possible ship positions, so check the open middle of the grid first.
If you like Crater Space, try these
Fleet StrikeHunting hidden ships turns into a duel here, where a probability-driven computer fires back at your fleet.
Black Box LasersConcealed objects on a grid once more, found by reading where laser beams exit, bounce or vanish.
Questions
How is Crater Space scored?
Your score is the number of misses in a round, and lower is better. Only misses use up missiles, so a hit never counts against you.
Does Crater Space save my record?
Yes. Your best round, the one with the fewest misses where you found every ship, is stored in your browser and shown as RECORD.
Why are there two PLAY buttons?
Both give you a random hidden layout under the same rules. The second one pulls a fresh random seed from the browser itself before the round begins. In practice you will not notice a difference in play.
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