Rockets are Super Hard
**Previously known as Launch Party**
You and your teammates (local co-op) are armed only with a guide book (100+ pages, hyperlinked) to instruct you in your task of launching rockets. Work together to complete complex puzzles by entering codes, pushing buttons, flicking switches and turning knobs in order to win the game!
Assemble your team and assign different roles in order to work together and complete your mission. There are numerous missions of varying difficulty, designed to be played by 2, 3, 4 or 5+ people effectively. There’s also a custom mission mode where you can balance the game depending on your group size or preferred level of difficulty.
The main game is split up into different sections of the launch, with different panels requiring completion in a particular order. Prelaunch panels have to be completed before T-0, propulsion and flight panels whilst the rocket is in the air, and orbit panels whilst the rocket is in orbit – all the while worrying about debug panels.
The 100+ page PDF guide book can be downloaded for free by your teammates and includes instructions for the 20 propulsion 26 prelaunch, 11 orbit, 5 flight and 4 debug puzzles that are in the game.
The puzzles are designed to be hard, both in terms of knowing what to do and being able to actually perform the operation on time. To alleviate some of this difficulty, there is a fixed mode, where puzzle answers will be the same each time that mission is played (e.g. press the red button on the propulsion panel at 60 seconds). Conversely, random mode has different answers each time and cannot be completely planned.
Features
- Local Co-op
- 50+ unique puzzles, including 20 different rockets, each with their own launch requirements
- Dynamically generated missions that provide a diverse range of launches
- Fun tutorial mode that teaches the basics
- 35 pre-designed missions of varying difficulty
- Only one person in the team needs to buy the game in order to play as a group. The other players can access the guide book (100+ pages) for free
- Single player mode
- Rockets!
Steam User 13
A very fun game similar to the old Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes. Quite challenging, and you'll definitely have to try each puzzle once or twice before the manual makes much sense - but overall it's very fun and has a promising future!
Steam User 18
This game is already shaping up to be really special. This is helped tremendously by devs who are extremely active in the community and receptive to suggestions. They work quickly and respond in the forum. I made a list of typos and suggestions for the manual and it was a fairly long list. They did every single thing on the list in the same day that I posted it.
From a gameplay perspective, this obviously is inspired by Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes, but I think this game stands up extremely well on its own. Being in the control room is significantly more fun than being the defuser in KTaNE, and the game itself feels more cohesive. The manual is also over 100 pages even though the game is in early access. The ktane manual is 23 pages. I've played it quite a bit already and I still feel like I haven't even scratched the surface. The single player campaign helps to teach the game, and even puts the manual pages inside the game to make it easier to look things up, but playing multiplayer is certainly more fun.
Completing the missions feels much more satisfying than defusing a bomb because of how much more thematic everything feels. Dividing the panels into sections of the launch, flight, and orbit stages of the mission keeps it from feeling like you're just solving abstract puzzles with a time limit.
The only negative things I have to say about the game so far, are that when you first start playing you may feel a little lost. There is a help page in the manual that explains what you should do during the mission, but most of it won't mean anything until you jump into the game and fail, but the single player campaign helps a lot with learning if the control room player is willing to take the time to play the campaign before inviting friends to help. Also I feel like the panels themselves are all relatively simple. The instructions for each panel fit onto a single page per panel, and while this may not sound like such a bad thing, I feel like making more complex panels will feel like something I will be missing once we have played through all the missions. But ktane has this same problem, and the best way to fix it is to just allow workshop support, and let the players create stuff for the game.
Overall I rate this game extremely positive, and I love playing it. I hope it gains a lot of traction into the full release and I really look forward to where it ends up!
Steam User 1
The first few hours are very solid. Haven't delved much deeper than that but it seems like a fun, complicated game requiring the effort of several people. The individual puzzles/modules aren't too difficult but you WILL need to manage more than one at once, you might end up needing more than two players eventually and the person controlling the game will likely turn into a person who handles debugging and only takes care of inputs that they're given as it does require some precision. The game is quite stressful and the manual is immensely thick. Very fun if you enjoy micromanaging several things at once and being directed by a friend or two who is sitting on an opened PDF in their browser.
Steam User 0
This game is good, if you are willing to sit through it's manual.
I've played my fair-share of modded Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes and it's arguably easier than this. The manual could absolutely be rewritten for clarity and to make it much easier to understand.
If you play KTaNE vanilla and are looking for something like it, this isn't it. However, if you want extra complexity, This might be worth grabbing.
Steam User 0
Great game! A bit more stressful than KTANE.
Not everything works perfectly, but totally playable and very enjoyable. Maybe a bit much for single-player, but with two or three friends you can make a true mission control environment. You just need other devices for reading the manual...
I hope that it gets some updates and mods in the future.
Recommended!
Steam User 0
Great game to play with friends, basically Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes, but with rockets, and more complex tasks! Me and my Aerospace Engineering student friends love playing it!
Steam User 0
I'm still getting started with the game but so far, I'm having a lot of fun!
This is a very small indie game and as a result, it doesn't have a lot of reviews, but because I see a lot of potential in the game, I wanted to support the game by writing one. I'll update this review as I continue to play the game.
This is like Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes but a lot more complex, in a good and satisfying way! While KTANE only features a manual with a few dozen pages, this game's manual has over a hundred pages! The manual is also very nicely designed, containing lots of interesting diagrams and drawings, which make me excited to play more. I also like the little red "handwritten" notes and arrows in the margins that make the manual feel like it really does belong to an engineer.
A big advantage of this game over KTANE is that everyone can view the puzzles. There's no separation between manual readers and puzzle manipulators. In addition, the puzzles are arguably more much interesting than those in KTANE. The puzzles in KTANE are limited to tiny little modules that fit on the bomb whereas in this game, you constantly have to look at not only the control panel and all of its little blinking lights and displays, but also the big computer screens in the control room. There are big variations in the puzzles and interfaces, how big and how sophisticated they are, and I love the variety.
Another advantage of this game over KTANE is that you can play by yourself! In KTANE, if you cannot find a partner, you'll just have to find another game to play. In this game, you can play as you like! And it does not affect my enjoyment at all, although it would be more fun with more people but only because it's fun being with friends, not that this game suffers in solo mode.
Some things that I would like to see improved: a better tutorial and graphic options.
When I first launched the game, I sensibly started the tutorial levels, but I was immediately thrown into the game. I had no idea what I was supposed to do. Only after exiting the tutorial did I see that on the main menu page, the game mentions taking a look at the "Notes" section and the getting started video. I would prefer if this was more apparently upon entering the tutorial menu, not on the main menu. I quite liked the getting started video. My biggest takeaway from the getting started video is a tour of the control panel, for example the blue panels are for prelaunch steps, here are the high priority debug panels, this is the panel to pay attention to when the rocket is in flight, etc. This information is invaluable when getting started as now, I have an idea of what to expect during a mission. It would be nice if some kind of tour could be built directly into the tutorial section. That would make the game a lot clearer.
Another reviewer mentioned suggested that this game doesn't hold hand enough. Perhaps, but I also like the idea of being thrown into a rocket control room and trying to figure out the manual on my own. It reminds me Please, Don't Press Anything, where you're thrown in front of a mysterious console and asked not to mess around with it. It also reminds me of TIS-100, where you're figuring out how to program a mysterious computer using a coffee stained manual with notes written all over. I do like that kind of immersion. I do not want to be taught how to use the manual but I need somewhere to start from. That's why I'd like the game to make it more clear to look at the Notes section when you're on the tutorials menu and for there to be some kind of brief overview of what a mission is like or a tour of the console built into the game. I think the tutorial could also benefit from a hint section as well. Perhaps this hint section could be a dropdown in the mission brief. I also think that the failure condition could be clarified more. I definitely had some trouble starting out because the game did not make it clear to me what I was doing wrong other than mentioning the general module or step I failed on. Perhaps the game doesn't need to be very specific during the actual game but clarification would have helped just learning the ropes in the tutorial section.
The game is very boxy looking which I don't think is a bad thing but I did see a lot of aliasing. I tried turning on the anti-aliasing option in the graphics settings but it wasn't as effective as I'd like and made some things look worse! I feel like should be relatively easy to improve upon.
To summarize, I like the game! I want to play more! (Also first review!)