Soft Landing
Soft Landing
Lunar lander game: dive fast, burn late, touch down soft
© 2026 Rankeno. All rights reserved.
Leaderboard
How to play
A one-thumb lunar lander game and rocket landing game: hold to fire the engine, slide to tilt, and drop through 100 levels of craters, comets, caves, lava worlds and a space station. A dashed stop line shows where a full burn would stop you, so you can dive fast, brake at the last moment and set the lander down feather-soft on the pad.
- Hold anywhere to fire the engine and slide your thumb left or right to tilt the lander. On a keyboard, hold ↑, W or Space to burn and use ← → or A D to tilt.
- Watch the dashed stop line under the ship: it marks where a full burn would bring you to a stop. When it turns red, the ground comes first, so burn now or steer for open space.
- Touch down on the pad slowly and upright. Under 0.9 m/s, level and not sliding is a FEATHER; a little faster is SOFT or BUMPY; too fast, too tilted or skidding is a crash.
- Follow the mission line at the top: land on the pad, choose the tiny ×3 pad, pick up the crew, hook a crate and lower it onto the pad, catch a drifting pad or dock at a bay.
- A crash costs one of your 3 lives and you retry the same layout. The run ends when the last life is gone.
Controls
- ↑, W or Space to burn
- ← → or A D to tilt
- Enter skips a beat
- P or Esc to pause
On a touchscreen: Hold to burn, slide left or right to tilt.
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About Soft Landing
Soft Landing is a lunar lander game built around the dive. Every level drops you into a crater, a canyon or a cave shaft up to seven screens deep, already falling, and the quickest way down is to fall freely and brake as late as you dare. A dashed stop line under the lander forward-simulates a full burn with the same gravity, wind, storm bands, magnets and geysers the ship feels, and it turns red the moment you can no longer stop in time. Set down at under 0.9 m/s, level and still, for a FEATHER and a streak multiplier that climbs to ×3; light your final burn above 12 m/s and touch down soft without hovering for a LATE BURN bonus; and every percent left in the main tank and every second under par adds to the score.
The 100 levels run through 10 chapters, each with its own sky and one new idea: the Grey Moon, a low-gravity Ice Comet with sliding pads and stranded crews, the windy Red Planet, the shafts of the Cave Moon, geysers and cargo hooks, drifting pads and rocks in the Asteroid Belt, heavy gravity and storm bands over a Gas Giant Moon, magnetic crystals, lava bombs and finally the force-field doors and docking bays of a Deep Space Station; past level 100 the chapters remix without end. Six power-ups unlock on the way down, levels 5, 15, 25 and so on are Star Drop bonus rounds, and every tenth level is a special mission that pays a life. Soft Landing is a Rankeno Play original from 2026, free in any browser on a phone, tablet or computer, and its best runs are ranked on the Rankeno Play leaderboards.
Game facts
- Category
- Skill
- Scores
- Points, highest wins
- Works on
- Desktop and phone browsers
- Made by
- Rankeno
Soft Landing tips and strategy
- Fall first, burn last. A free fall and one full burn is the quickest and cheapest way down; the stop line tells you when to light it, and fuel left in the main tank pays 3 points per percent times the chapter number.
- Feather every landing you can: under 0.9 m/s, within 4° of level and drifting less than 0.5 m/s sideways. FEATHERs in a row raise the landing multiplier by 0.5 each, up to ×3, and a BUMPY touchdown or a crash resets it.
- On Any pad levels the tiny pad on the mesa pays ×3 and the middle one ×2, which is worth the extra steering once a streak is running.
- Make small corrections early. Lift your thumb, or let go of the arrow keys, and the gyro eases the hull back toward level; big tilts near the ground cost height and fuel.
- Power-ups unlock as you go: Fuel Cell from level 2 (+30 % fuel), Shield from 11 (absorbs one crash), Stabilizer from 21 (levels you and cancels the wind for 6 s), Slow-Mo from 31 (5 s), Magnet from 41 (pulls crystals and capsules in for 8 s) and Extra Life from 51.
- A crash retries the same layout, so you can learn it. From the third try at a level up to 100 you get a small mercy reserve of fuel and a slightly softer safe speed, and that reserve never counts toward the fuel bonus.
Soft Landing FAQ
What is the dashed line under the lander in Soft Landing?
What does ON FUMES mean?
Is Soft Landing free to play?
Can I play Soft Landing on my phone or tablet?
How do the Soft Landing leaderboards work?
Soft Landing is an original Rankeno game. © 2026 Rankeno. All rights reserved. The game, its code, artwork, sounds and name are protected by copyright; copying, re-hosting, embedding or redistributing them is not allowed. See our Terms.