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Tech

Just Try to Land a SpaceX Rocket on a Drone Boat In This Infuriating Game

Now you know how Elon Musk must feel.
Screengrab: Dixiklo

As SpaceX has learned time and time again, it's very, very hard to land a rocket on a boat in the middle of the ocean without blowing the whole damn thing up. And now, you too can deal with the endless frustration of rocket engineering, albeit without the risk of watching a machine worth millions of dollars go up in flames.

A German 17 year old has designed "SpaceX Falcon 9 Lander," a browser game similar to many "moon lander" type games you might be used to. Basically, you've got to ease the rocket onto the platform, paying close attention to how much fuel you've got left.

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The creator, who goes by the name "Dixiklo," tells me that he modified a lunar lander game he made using Scratch, an MIT-developed program that lets users code games without knowing too much about programming.

"Someone had created a game about landing a rocket. I liked the idea and since I had just spent most of my summer break (more or less) perfecting Lunar Lander," Dixiklo told me. "Changing Lunar Lander to Falcon 9 Lander wasn't a problem at all—I must have done it in 10 hours spread out over 3 days."

Dixiklo says he's a big fan of Elon Musk's company and says that the attention the game has gotten him—it rocketed to the top of the SpaceX subreddit—may spur him to make more games about the company. The physics in the game aren't entirely accurate as there's more to landing a rocket on a ship than pressing the up arrow on a keyboard, but Dixiklo says he tried to get as close as he could.

"In game design, you usually put the fun factor over realism, but realism was very important to me for this project. Most of the physics is just a crude imitation of real life, but it works for what it's supposed to do," he told me. "The rocket actually has a bit of lift, meaning that if you turn it to the right it will fall slightly to the right. There is of course air resistance, but I left out wind because (surprise) landing a rocket on top of a moving platform is hard enough without being flung across the screen."

He's right—I've played the game maybe 50 times, and have failed every time … just like the real SpaceX (so far!).