Neptune Blue

About the game

Neptune Blue is a game of nerve and small movements. Your ship skims forward over a dark sea of moving triangles, a wireframe ocean that rolls and swells under the stars, and all you can do is slide left and right. Out of the distance come tumbling rocks and burning fireballs; touch one and the ship explodes in a burst of sound and light, costing you one of your three lives.

The run never ends on its own. Your score is the distance covered, shown at the top left next to the best score of the session, and every so often a glowing health power-up drifts into view, worth an extra life if you can steer into it safely. The game is over when the last life goes, and Space starts the next attempt straight away.

The whole scene is real 3D drawn with a 2D canvas: razh built it on a stripped-down, heavily modified version of the three.js canvas renderer, so the rocks are flat-shaded polyhedra lit by coloured lights. The pounding drum and bass loop that drives the run is synthesised by the game itself.

razh made Neptune Blue for js13kGames 2014, whose theme was the four elements.

Playing it here

Click Play and press Space to start. If the game area looks small inside the player, the [↔] button in the bottom right corner expands it to fill the frame. The best score lasts only while the page is open.

Controls

A few things worth knowing

Small taps. The ship moves quickly, so short presses keep it under control better than holding a key down.

Look far ahead. Rocks are easier to avoid when you see them coming from the horizon than when they are already close.

Do not chase every power-up. An extra life is only worth it if the path to it is clear.

Credits and licence

Neptune Blue was created by razh. Its renderer is adapted from three.js (MIT). The game is released under the MIT licence; the licence texts are linked from this page.