Apogee

How to Play Apogee

Apogee is a 2D top-down orbital slingshot puzzle game. You are the mission controller of a deep-space probe launched from a fixed station. Your goal: guide the probe through a system of planets and land it inside the golden target ring orbiting one of them. The challenge is that you cannot steer after launch — you must choose your angle and speed before firing, then watch gravity do the rest.

Setting Up Your Launch

Before each launch you have two controls: angle and speed. Drag anywhere on the canvas to set the launch angle — the cyan arrow on the station shows the direction your probe will travel. Use the Speed slider below the canvas to set initial velocity on a scale of 1 to 10. A white dashed line shows a rough trajectory preview updated in real time as you adjust either control.

Note that the preview is an approximation: it shows two simulated seconds of straight-line motion and does not account for gravity. The real path will curve significantly, especially near large planets. Use the preview as a rough aiming guide, not an exact prediction — discovering how the gravity bends your probe is part of the fun.

Physics and Gravity Wells

Every planet in Apogee exerts a gravitational pull on your probe proportional to the planet's mass and inversely proportional to the square of the distance (standard Newtonian gravity). The faint radial glow around each planet indicates the strength of its gravity well — a larger, brighter halo means stronger pull. Rocky brown planets are typically lighter, gas giant amber planets mid-weight, and blue marble planets vary per puzzle.

To use a gravity slingshot, aim your probe so it passes close to a planet without hitting it. The planet's gravity will curve the probe into a tight arc, changing its direction and speed. On Medium and Hard puzzles, you must deliberately route through one or two gravity wells to curve toward the hidden target ring. On Expert puzzles, multi-stage slingshots through three or four planets are often required.

Fuel and Attempts

Each puzzle gives you a limited number of fuel cells (shown as cyan dots in the HUD above the canvas). Easy puzzles provide 5–6 cells; Hard and Expert puzzles give only 3. Every time you press Launch the probe fires and one fuel cell is consumed, whether the attempt succeeds or not. If the probe crashes into a planet or flies off the edge of the map, the probe resets to the station and you may try again with the remaining fuel.

Running out of fuel before reaching the target ring triggers the Fuel Depleted screen. You can retry the same puzzle with full fuel restored — your score for that puzzle is forfeited, but progress through the tier continues.

Winning and Scoring

The probe wins a puzzle when it enters the golden ring orbiting the target planet. The ring rotates slowly, so the exact position of the target shifts each second. Your score for a solved puzzle is: (fuel cells remaining + 1) × 1000 − time elapsed in seconds × 5. The maximum possible score per puzzle is 6,000 — achieved by solving it instantly on the first launch with full fuel. Minimising attempts and solving quickly are both rewarded.

Difficulty Tiers and Daily Puzzle

Apogee has 25 hand-crafted puzzles spread across four difficulty tiers: Easy (5), Medium (8), Hard (7), and Expert (5). Switch between tiers using the tabs above the canvas. Click Daily to play a fixed seeded puzzle from the Medium tier based on today's UTC date — the same puzzle for every player worldwide, resets at midnight UTC.