About this game
Starskip is golf, except the course is space. Each course is a handful of planets and moons with a ring somewhere behind them. Pull your star back, let go, and that's the last say you get. From then on it's gravity, and the planets bend your shot into something you didn't quite plan. Sink it in as few shots as you can.
Every course can be finished. The game works out a way through before it hands one to you, so you are never stuck with something impossible. It also works out how few shots it takes, and that's the number you're trying to match.
Each attempt leaves a faint trail across the sky, and those trails are how you learn a course. After four tries you aren't guessing any more. You're looking at four curves and aiming for the gap between two of them.
When you finally get it in, you get a star chart: the course, all your trails, and your shot count. The link on it gives a friend the same planets and the same gravity, with your score to beat. There's also one course a day that everybody in the world plays.
How to play
- Pull back and let go. Press on your star and drag away from where you want it to go, like a catapult. The further you pull, the harder it flies. A finger works the same as a mouse.
- Watch what gravity does. Your star keeps going, and every planet tugs on it. A shot that misses isn't wasted — the trail it leaves is the most useful thing on the screen.
- Aim at a planet, not just the ring. Straight lines rarely work. Going close past a planet bends your star for free, and that usually saves you a shot or two.
- Try again as often as you like. Press R and the course resets with your trails still on it. Nothing is lost.
- Take your star chart. Sink it and you get a picture of the course with your trails on it, and a link that gives someone else the exact same shot.
Controls
| Input | What it does |
|---|---|
| Mouse / touch | pull back on the star · release to fling |
| R | retry this system |
| N | new system |
| D | today's system |
| M | sound on/off |
| Fullscreen | hides the browser so the game has the whole screen. Press it again to bring the browser back |
Tips for fewer shots
- Make your first shot a soft one. A gentle flick shows you which way the course pulls without sending your star off the edge. Then hit the same line harder.
- Aim in front of a planet, not at it. Fire straight at one and you'll get swallowed or bounced. Skimming past the front of it is what turns a straight shot into a curve.
- Small planets steer, big ones take over. A little one nudges your star a few degrees. A big one owns it for the rest of the shot. Save the small ones for last.
- Read your trails. If two shots missed on either side of the ring, the answer is somewhere between them. That's a much better clue than trying harder.
- Missing the target by one is fine. The number is what the game itself needed on the same course. Matching it is good. Beating it means you found something it didn't.
- Play today's course first. Everyone gets the same one, so your score means something to a friend straight away — they can go and try the exact shot you just made.
Good to know
- Nothing to buy and nothing to unlock. No sign-up, no chat, no way for players to contact each other.
- It plays just as well with a finger as with a mouse. Every key it lists — retry, new course, today's course, sound — is also a button on the screen.
- Your progress stays in this browser. A challenge link carries the course itself, so it rebuilds anywhere without anything being uploaded.
- Every course is made right here in this tab, and checked before you see it.
- There's no timer and nothing to lose. Take as many attempts at a course as you want — only the shot that goes in gets counted, and retrying costs you nothing.
Want the short version? The gravity golf guide covers it in a couple of minutes.
