Orbit Hop

Orbit Hop is a free one-tap space game you play right in your browser. Your little red-and-white rocket circles a planet, and the only thing you control is when to let go. Tap, and the rocket flies off along its orbit in the direction it was travelling; time it right and the next planet's gravity catches it and swings it into a new orbit, ready for the next hop. It is a simple idea from real orbital physics, set in a bright blue nebula full of ringed planets, spiral galaxies and drifting asteroids, and it is one of the easiest of our space games to pick up and one of the hardest to put down.

Timing is everything, and for your first three planets Orbit Hop shows you when. A glowing launch window lights up on your orbit: the stretch where a launch will reach the next planet. When your rocket slides into the glow it lights up and pings, so you learn exactly what a good launch looks like. After the third planet the windows switch off and the timing is yours: read the next planet's ring and the dots ahead of your rocket's nose, and tap when they line up. The brighter heart of the window is a perfect launch, aimed at the planet's core, and perfects in a row are worth more and more. Each planet spins its own way, so watch which direction the next orbit turns before you plan your launch.

The planets keep climbing, and so does the challenge. Orbits get faster and the windows shorter the higher you go. Asteroid belts drift across the gaps between planets, so you have to launch when the window is open and a gap in the rocks is coming your way. Every seventh planet is a fork: take the first window for a plain planet, or hold your nerve for a later, narrower one that reaches a gold planet worth 300 bonus points. You have three rockets: miss a planet or hit a rock and a new rocket warps in on the planet you left, but lose all three and you are lost in space.

There are two ways to play. In Endless there is no clock: you hop until your last rocket is lost, and the leaderboard shows how far you got. Timed is the same chain of planets on a 90-second clock, which makes it one of our quick games, and it is the version you meet in the Daily, in Swipe mode and in the gauntlets. Your score is 100 points for every planet you reach, plus bonuses for perfect launches and gold planets. The first planets are generous, with wide windows and no rocks, so a first run is easy to start; reaching the deep, fast orbits is what takes practice.

Free play is unlimited, and when you want a run to count, press Ranked attempt: your run is replayed and verified on our servers before it joins the leaderboards, which makes Orbit Hop a great fit for our competitive games. Every seed is built to be equally hard, so a score is a fair comparison. The movement is a playful take on real gravity, which puts the game right at home among our physics games.

One button is all it takes. On a phone or tablet, tap anywhere on the screen. On a computer, click, or press Space or Enter, and press P to pause. That makes Orbit Hop one of our favourite one-button games and timing games, it works just as well on mobile as on PC, and like everything on Gamefinity it is one of our free online games with no download.