Launch

Launch is a one-tap cannon distance game. The barrel sweeps up and down, and a short fuse is burning: tap to fire the turtle at the angle you like. Once it's flying, every tap fires a little rocket that kicks it up and forward. Springs and bombs on the ground fling it further and refill a rocket. Spike beds end the run, and so does rolling to a stop. Your score is how many metres you fly, on a new course every day, with friends' ghosts flying the same one.

How to play Launch

1. Tap to fire the cannon. The barrel keeps sweeping, so pick your angle. Wait too long and the fuse goes off.
2. In the air, tap to fire a rocket boost. You carry up to three, and they recharge slowly.
3. Land on springs and bombs to fly higher and faster. Each one gives back a rocket.
4. Never land on the red spikes. If you run out of speed and roll to a stop, the run is over too.

Tips to get a high score

• A shot around 45 degrees goes furthest, and the first spring sits right where a good shot comes down.
• Watch the little arrow under the turtle: it shows where you'll land. Red means spikes, so boost.
• Boost late, just before you come down. The same rocket carries you further than it would from high up.
• Keep one rocket in reserve when you're rolling along the ground. A hop at the last moment clears a spike bed.
• Skimming just over a spike bed shows a CLOSE! popup, and springs and bombs in a row build a chain. Both are just for show: only distance scores.

How the course changes as you fly

Launch gets harder over roughly the first 85 seconds of flight, measured in time rather than distance. The change is gentle at first, quickest in the middle of that stretch, and then it holds steady.

Over that time the ground turns against you. Early on, about six in ten objects are springs or bombs and the spike beds are short, around 2.5 to 4 metres. By the end, nearly two in three objects are spike beds, many of them 8 to 13 metres long. Springs get narrower too, so they're easier to overshoot.

Your rockets recharge more slowly as well. An empty slot refills in under two seconds at the start but takes about five seconds late in a run. That makes springs and bombs, which hand a rocket back instantly, worth much more the further you go.

Springs, bombs and when to boost

Your score is the furthest point you've reached, in metres. Coins, chains and CLOSE! popups look nice, but none of them add distance.

Springs never wear out, and they even fire you up if you roll onto one along the ground. They throw you back up with most of your falling speed, so a high drop onto a spring sends you high again. Bombs work once, but they kick harder both upward and forward.

A rocket always cancels your downward speed and sends you up at the same fixed rate. If you're still climbing when you fire, you lose about two-thirds of that climb and get the boost on top of what's left. So a rocket fired on the way up is partly wasted, while one fired on the way down gets its full effect.

A solid plan for a long run: fire the cannon somewhere near the middle of its sweep, keep rockets for when the landing arrow turns red, and nudge your landings onto springs and bombs whenever you can, because each one refills a rocket.

Why good runs end early

Rolling to a stop catches a lot of runs. Each bounce on plain ground keeps only about 60 percent of your upward speed and 90 percent of your forward speed. Once the bounces get small you start rolling, and rolling drains speed so fast that a slow roll is over within a second or two.

If you're bouncing lower and lower over a long stretch of plain ground, spend a rocket before you start rolling, not after. A boost from a decent bounce keeps your forward speed; a boost from a crawl barely helps.

Don't sit at the cannon either. The fuse gives you six seconds, and the barrel sweeps from low to high in under a second, so you'll see every angle several times. Very flat shots hit the ground early and start losing speed to bounces sooner, and very steep ones spend the cannon's power on height.

Daily levels and ghost races

Today's Launch level is the same for everyone, and you race the ghosts of other players' runs. How daily levels and challenges work.

FAQ

Add Launch to your site

Launch is free to embed on your blog, class page or website. Paste this code:

<iframe src="https://tapamine.com/embed/launch/" title="Launch: free one-tap game" width="360" height="640" style="border:0;border-radius:16px;max-width:100%" allow="autoplay; fullscreen; web-share" loading="lazy"></iframe>

If you like this, try

See all 100 games →