Meteorites

space shooter

Inertial survival in an asteroid field. The ship has no brakes: it turns on the spot and thrusts where it is looking, and almost all the speed you gather stays with you, so every burst of thrust is a debt to be settled later. Shooting both helps and hurts, because a rock you hit does not vanish — it splits into two smaller, faster ones, and the field always gets busier before it gets empty. The smallest fragments pay five times what a boulder pays, and the points go to whoever is willing to chase them at the worst possible moment.

Play Meteorites

How to play

The goal is to clear a wave of rocks without being hit, then do it again with a wave that has one more rock in it. You get three lives; the first wave holds five rocks and every level adds another. Each rock you hit splits into two smaller and faster ones, down to the tiny fragments, which simply burst — so emptying the field always takes far more shots than the opening view suggests. Scoring: twenty points for a large rock, fifty for a medium one, a hundred for a small fragment. Touching a rock of any size costs a life; three lost lives end the run, and your best score stays on the device. Flying: the ship rotates in place and thrust accelerates it along whatever direction the nose is pointing. There is no brake and almost no friction, so stopping means turning around and thrusting back the other way. The screen edges wrap — leave on the left and you return on the right — and that goes for the rocks and your shots as well. Controls: on a keyboard ← and → rotate, ↑ or W thrusts, Space fires, P or Esc pauses, Enter resumes or replays. On touch, the two buttons at bottom left rotate and the two at bottom right are thrust and fire; they work at the same time, and turning while thrusting and firing is the normal way to play. A mouse click only pauses and resumes: you do not aim or fire with the pointer.

How it works

You fly a small ship that starts in the middle of the screen, surrounded by drifting rocks. Shoot every rock and a new field arrives. You have three lives, and there is no last level: the game goes on until they are gone.

Turning and thrust are separate. Left and right spin the ship on the spot. Thrust pushes it the way the nose points. The speed you build stays with you and fades only slowly, so to stop you turn round and thrust the other way.
Edges wrap for everything. Your ship, the rocks and your shots all leave one side of the screen and come back on the opposite one.
Hold fire for a steady stream. Shots come out at a fixed rate, about six a second. Each one flies straight for roughly a second and then disappears, and it does not pick up the speed of your ship.
Rocks come in three sizes. A large rock that is hit splits into two medium ones, a medium rock into two small ones, and a small rock is destroyed. The pieces fly off in random directions, and the smaller they are, the faster they go: a small rock moves about two and a half times as fast as a large one.
Touching a rock costs a life. The ship reappears in the centre, standing still, and blinks for about three seconds. While it blinks, rocks pass through it harmlessly, and you can already shoot.

On a keyboard, A and D also turn and W also thrusts.

Fields and scoring

Level 1 starts with five large rocks, and every new field has one more: six on level 2, seven on level 3, and so on. The rocks themselves never get faster. Only their number grows.

Points depend on the size of the rock you hit:

large rock: 20 points
medium rock: 50 points
small rock: 100 points

Breaking one large rock all the way down, into two medium and then four small pieces, is worth 520 points, and 400 of those come from the small ones. The whole first field is worth 2,600. Your best score is shown as BEST under the current one and kept in this browser.

Strategy that actually helps

Finish what you split. Hitting every large rock once fills the screen with fast pieces heading in random directions. Break one rock down completely before you start on the next, and the field stays readable.

Thrust in short bursts. About a second of thrust already makes the ship roughly as fast as its own shots, and that speed does not go away on its own. Most crashes come from drifting into something. Tap thrust, turn, shoot.

Be near the centre when a field ends. New rocks are placed away from the centre of the screen, not away from your ship, and a new field brings no blinking protection. Before you shoot the last fragment, move back towards the middle.

A graze is not a crash. A rock has to reach the centre of your ship to destroy it. One brushing the tip of the nose or a wing does not count, so there is a little more room between rocks than the outlines suggest.

Shoot across the edges. Your shots wrap just as rocks do, so a rock that has just slipped off one side is still within reach from the other.

Common questions

Is it free? Yes. It runs in your browser, with no signup and nothing to download.

Does it work on a phone? Yes. Four round buttons appear as soon as you touch the screen: the two at bottom left turn the ship, and the two at bottom right are thrust and fire. You can hold several at once. It works in portrait and landscape.

Does it end? No. Every field you clear is followed by a busier one, and the game ends only when you lose your third ship.

Can I pause? Press P or Esc, and Enter to carry on. The game also pauses by itself when you switch to another tab.

Can I install it? Yes. Bananai can be installed as an app from the browser, and a game you have already opened usually keeps working when the connection drops.

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Also available in: Italiano