SimpleRockets was released in 2013 for mobile and a ton of work was put into getting it ready for PC and Mac. It was inspired by KSP, and it offers a simpler 2D experience for building rockets and exploring space with realistic orbital mechanics.
Very Positive
363 Steam reviews
| LANGUAGE | AUDIO | SUBTITLES | INTERFACE |
|---|---|---|---|
| English | — | — | Y |
SimpleRockets by Jundroo, LLC is a deceptively modest space simulation that hides a surprisingly thoughtful and rewarding experience beneath its clean 2D presentation. At first glance, it looks like a stripped-down take on the rocket-building genre, but once you begin interacting with its systems, it becomes clear that the game is carefully designed to capture the essence of real-world rocketry without overwhelming the player. It strikes a delicate balance between accessibility and authenticity, making it equally suitable for curious newcomers and players who enjoy tinkering with physics-driven systems.
The construction aspect is where the experience begins, and it is immediately intuitive without being shallow. Players assemble rockets from a selection of components—command pods, engines, fuel tanks, separators, and utility parts—using a drag-and-drop interface that feels clean and responsive. Early builds can be as simple as stacking parts into a functional rocket, but the system quickly reveals its depth as players begin to experiment with staging, weight distribution, and thrust alignment. Designing a rocket that can not only lift off but also reach orbit or return safely requires careful planning, and each failure becomes part of a natural learning process. Explosions, misfires, and unstable launches are frequent in the early stages, but they rarely feel punishing; instead, they encourage iteration and refinement.
Once a rocket leaves the ground, the game shifts into its simulation phase, where its physics model becomes the centerpiece. SimpleRockets incorporates realistic orbital mechanics, meaning that reaching space is only the first step. Achieving a stable orbit, adjusting trajectories, and navigating between celestial bodies all require an understanding of how gravity and velocity interact. The game does not hold the player’s hand excessively, but it introduces concepts gradually through both structured challenges and open experimentation. Each planet and moon presents different conditions, forcing players to adapt their designs and flight strategies, which adds a sense of progression without relying on traditional leveling systems.
The challenge mode provides a useful framework for players who prefer guided objectives, offering tasks that range from simple altitude goals to more complex missions involving precise landings or orbital maneuvers. These challenges serve as both tutorials and milestones, helping players build confidence while introducing more advanced concepts step by step. However, the true appeal of SimpleRockets lies in its sandbox nature. Once the basics are understood, the game opens up into a space where players can set their own goals, whether that means designing efficient multi-stage rockets, attempting ambitious interplanetary journeys, or simply experimenting with unconventional builds to see what works.
Visually, the game keeps things minimal, but this simplicity works in its favor. The 2D perspective ensures clarity, making it easy to track trajectories and understand how your rocket behaves during flight. While it lacks the visual spectacle of more complex simulations, it compensates with readability and smooth performance. The interface is straightforward, avoiding unnecessary clutter and allowing players to focus on the mechanics. Sound design is subtle but effective, with engine roars and explosive failures adding just enough feedback to make each launch feel impactful.
One of the most compelling aspects of SimpleRockets is its educational value, though it never presents itself as a teaching tool outright. Through experimentation, players naturally develop an understanding of core principles like thrust-to-weight ratios, staging efficiency, and orbital dynamics. Success feels genuinely earned because it comes from applying these concepts rather than following scripted solutions. This sense of discovery gives the game a lasting appeal, particularly for players who enjoy learning through hands-on interaction.
That said, the game’s simplicity can also be its limitation. The lack of visual variety and narrative context may make the experience feel sparse for players who are looking for a more immersive or story-driven adventure. Controls during flight can take time to master, especially when performing delicate maneuvers, and the absence of extensive guidance may leave some players feeling lost once the initial challenges are completed. Without self-directed goals, the sandbox can lose momentum, making long-term engagement dependent on the player’s own creativity and curiosity.
Despite these drawbacks, SimpleRockets succeeds in delivering a focused and satisfying simulation experience that respects the player’s intelligence while remaining approachable. It captures the joy of building something from scratch, watching it succeed—or fail—and using that knowledge to improve the next attempt. It may not have the scale or complexity of larger space simulators, but its clarity, depth, and sense of experimentation make it a standout in its niche.
Rating: 8/10
The game is very short and no story just a sandbox game. It's good as a mobile game but on PC I would have expected some more parts. Fun for few hours but gets boring after that, not much to do either for me.
很好玩但是，太阳能模块和电能推进模块呢？
I like sfs more (sfs = Spaceflight Simulator)
同年回忆
i play this when im too tired for ksp
2D Kerbal Space Program
The original, super awesome classic 2D Kerbal Space Program clone for mobile, but on PC! I've played this for many hours on mobile, unfortunately it can no longer be installed from Google Play due to being built for an older version of Android, but thanks to being available for PC, I can now relive the classic experiences of my childhood! 10/10 would recommend, it's actually easier to digest than Kerbal Space Program and Simple Rockets 2 (now called Juno: New Origins) since it removes that confusing-to-new-rocket-scientist third dimension!
This is an okay video game. I do like building rockets and launching them, but there are a few issues with this game. For one, rockets can wobble and break, especially big ones. Secondly, despite it being inspired by Kerbal Space Program, there are no astronauts. Lastly, you are limited in terms of building. There are no kinds of fairings, you can only have one docking plug at a time, lastly, which I think is the worst part, you can also only have one control pod at a time, so you can't have a station core launch where you can separate it and rearrange it. Also, the solar system is too close to our real solar system, making it feel more generic.
But other than that, this game is fun. If you're into rocket science, I say give this a try. But it's nothing to be hyped over, especially if you aren't into that stuff. Plus, there are better games like Kerbal Space Program or Space Flight Simulator. You can loose yourself in time and do some pretty cool things like building a space station which is what I just did before writing this review. I also like how you can launch from almost anywhere in the Smolar System (That's the name of the solar system in this game). So, if you like rocket science or want a slight break from more complex games like Kerbal Space Program but still want to taste space, I'd say give this a try. But if you aren't one of those people or you already Kerbal Space Program, Space Flight Simulator, or even Juno: New Origins, I'd say give this a pass.
TLDR: This game is fun, but nothing to be hyped over. It will entertain you, but won't wow you.
好玩。算是为童年补票了。
I remember enjoying these games a lot more on tablet. For PC the game needs some fixes / optimizations. For instance: The icons to control the craft are all scattered far across the bottom edges of the scree. This is a long ways to drag the mouse on a PC. The button for staging is all the way to left while speed control is all the way to the right. This could certainly be optimized for PC gaming and larger monitors but sadly it hasn't.
Worth it on sale (Don't expect updates for a mobile port).
The rocket does indeed do rocketry
Fun little physics game with missions.
KSP is hard...for me anyway. SimpleRockets gives me the fun of KSP without the hassle.
gg
补票
一个比坎巴拉简单的多的太空探索游戏，中学时有幸在步步高家教机上玩到，当时还降落到了另外三颗行星和月球，现特来补票全通关一遍，致敬我的童年回忆（坏消息是这个版本没有固推和霍尔电推
нет
Please describe what you liked or disliked about this product.
How am I better at KSP than this game
监听键盘的脚本肯定有bug，一动键盘程序就卡死了。
补票
this game is super simaler to a game that costs double!
玩不明白，不会操控火箭
[spoiler]感觉坎巴拉太空计划更适合我[/spoiler]
i am going to crash a simple rocket into the devs house
童年游戏，前来补票正版！
good game but it now
In case you don't have the budget to play KSP
its just spaceflight simulator on a budget. pretty decent.
手机上补票来的
Sandbox mode is broken. Every other mode works such as the challenge missions but the game crashes immediately as soon as you try to test a rocket on sandbox mode.
Awsome. Fit for kids
Played this on mobile off and on for years. Really fun space sandbox game. I honestly enjoy it more than Kerbal for it's "simplicity". Highly recommend.
About the most amazing 2D space adventure you can have. Works on mobile. Works on Tablet PCs with only 1GB of RAM. Simple controls and easy to understand systems. If you like minecraft, this is a great addition to your playtime. Simplerockets 2 is 3D and a wonderful next step once you master Simplerockets 1.
So Fun
Changed to thumbs up after figuring out the (very non-intuitive) way to load saved games. You can save just before you're going to do something dangerous, and after crashing it won't be easy to load the save. Like I launched from earth and tried to land on the moon, and then just before landing saved the game, and then crashed. This happens a lot in these games.
So to reload the save I had to start over as if going to launch from earth again, and then hit ESC and there's a "load" menu again. The UI is not consistent - sometimes ESC does something else - so it's not great.
In fact, I think it was designed very perfectly badly. You'd have to be some sort of evil genius to make a UI this bad.
Anyways - for the $0.97 I paid, it's not horrible, and it will play on a potato.
Game-play consists of designing a ship and flying it somewhere, and there are space-docks that can be made. Everything is super stripped down.
This game is borderline torture to play - you can't use the keyboard to control throttle or direction - there are no RCS thrusters - so it's pretty hopeless, but not completely impossible.
I would buy this if I had a kid and I couldn't afford KSP (or SR2) and I wanted to see if they really liked this kind of game-play. If they made it from earth to the moon and successfully landed without blowing up the ship, I'd say they had earned getting the other games. Or if I just couldn't afford a PC capable of playing KSP - this one will play on your pocket-watch if it runs Windows.
Not only is it not fun but there is already a better game than this that is older-- Kerbal Space Program-- I'd recommend you buy that instead of this.
Simple.
Not worth $8 in 2022. Should be free
ta bueno amigo. descargalo
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Very fun 10/10 would play again. Getting into orbit is fun.
Cheap and easy rocketry, well worth a sale price. The game is what it says it is: Simple.
so much realistic stuff and so much fun!
Not sure what I had expected, I thought it was more like those games I used to play about building better rockets and researching better parts until you got high enough, this is much more of an educational tool, but it all works, and it's not unattractive, so a thumbs up for what it is, even if it isn't what I expected.
Not really a game though.
和SimpleRockets2一样好玩，SimpleRockets配置更低，更流畅，我一样喜欢SimpleRockets！！！
ok
This is actually a pretty good game. The only bad parts are that rockets don't always attach parts correctly, and that docking ports don't combine the parts into 1 build (makes it harder to make massive ships in orbit. Bought for 74 cents on sale, amazing value. Gets pretty intense trying to save your space tug after it runs out of RCS propellant.
bad game me angy
Oui ! Dommage pour la version Française,il faut s'y faire.Mais il est le bienvenue dans ma bibliotChèque !
É definitivamente o melhor jogo que já joguei em toda minha infância. Uma época onde tinha horas de tempo livre, concentração e simplesmente curiosidade de aprender como foguetes voam, orbitam e como seria o futuro da colonização humana. Essas 70 horas, somadas as possíveis 100 que tive num tablet antigo em 2015 me fizeram fazer um mega fictício império espacial em quase todos os planetas, mesmo com a ausência de recursos imersivos para tal atividade. Fiz na Lua, marte e Halley. Testei foguetes com formatos que desafiaraiam a física newtoniana, motores como RSC para mover minhas gigantes estações colonizadoras. Pousei na Lua usando só ions, usei dezenas de mods. Moldou meu atual estilo e prefência de jogos eletrônicos. Jundroo, você me fez uma criança bem alegre!
I don't have blasto SRB 500 in my game! Is it included in a DLC？
хорошая игра
its a nightmare to connect blocks together do not recomend the more u try join blocks they just stop conecting
they say "the bigger the rocket the harder to control" more like badly designed game that doesnt work propperly rest of the game is amazing just worst rocket designing stage ive ever seen
很不错的游戏！（不过我还是推荐盗版，因为这玩意真的不值得
看steam上的评论和社区，感觉国内进度比国外高不少啊
i dont get why my parachute wont work on the moon i think its bugged but cool game.
IG维评分:6/10
补票
This game taught me a bunch of science words, and it was really fun, too.
Pretty interesting dynamics. Pretty intense trying to figure out a good payload while keeping weight light in relation to thrust.
Вещь! Простая, красивая и (немного) удобная симуляция ракет. Проще Кербала так как в 2д.
Не хватает - намеков на то, как строить перелётные орбиты(методом тыка) и характеристик двигателей(аналогично). Рассчитать полёт не получается, приходится на глаз...
с63амг летит нащной маскве лесго
proste rakiety to gra gdzie robisz proste rakiety, prosta recenzja, fajna gra na dwie godziny
rocket
It's a good game but not worth buying. If it's free or very cheap go ahead, but if you have money just buy KSP.
Simple yet deep.
If you're half interested in spacey, racey things you can't go wrong with this tiny sandbox sim.
It's not only rocket building & orbital mechanics on a budget. This is the perfect genre for an uncomplicated, focused core gameplay to shine.
rating: four out of five Lagrange points
verdict:
The Right Stuff meets bare bones. Perfect edutainment for kids.
很棒的游戏，补票+1
На телефоне в такое поиграть можно было бы. Но играть на компьютере, когда есть KSP...
É simples. É bom. Kerbal pra quem tem computador fraco ou só quer partir direto pra construção de foguetes. Em sale é uma boa pedida.
huh you should PlAy dis
less autistic than kerbals by one dimension
that said, 2/3rds the autism of kerbals is still a lot of autism to enjoy
This is a mobile ported 2D ripoff of Kerbal Space Program where you design rockets and then try them out in a variety of challenges.
We have a number of problems here and the developer kind of admits his game is inferior to KSP as well as unabashedly admitting he's ripping off someone else's work. Making a 2D, retrograde version of a 3D game is like cutting your legs off at the knees so you can be shorter. Why go through extensive effort to be worse than you could have been? Next problem... this is a mobile port but it's on Steam. Unacceptable, mobile trash doesn't belong on PC. Finally, the developer superseded this game with Simple Rockets 2, but he failed to do the right thing and remove this old, inferior version from the store.
Here's the real kicker, the developer thinks PC gamers are scum, he's charging $7.99 USD for this on PC when he's charging $2.99 on iOS. Don't reward this kind of scumbag PC gamer gouging.
Oyun çok eğlenceli :)
it is a fun space sim please buy so the dev can make more games!
Un KSP en 2D, facile et pas cher. Un p'tit tuto, un mode mission pour bien apprendre, et le mode libre :D
J'adore, j'ai déjà fais revenir ma capsule de la "Smoon", j'ai ma station de ravitaillement autour de la "Smearth" et je pars pour poser un rover sur "Smars" ! Et vous? Où irez vous?
bugged
Build me a ship worthy of Mordor
man kann fast gar nichts machen, es gibt eindeutig zu wenig bauteile!!!!
just like the simulations
all
This game is one of my favorite space sim games. It is what it says it is, a simple rocket game, but thats good, you can learn very quickly, and get in to orbit and dock within an hour of playing the game. The game is fairly easy to master, and is a blast, 10/10 would recommend.
it dose not have that much stuff for £5!! just don t buy it
good
gooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooood
Quite fun
Good game my friend
Good game to get you into Kerbal.
说出来你们可能不信，但我当时确实是在步步高家教机上第一次玩的2333，还记得当时我把所有功能全部摸清，造了一个多功能机器人时的自豪感...现在那个家教机已经退休，也到了该我补票的时候了，大力推荐，可玩性取决于你的脑洞
SimpleRockets apresenta ao jogador uma dinâmica de jogo única que mistura estratégia e simulação misturados com elementos de construção espacial. A mecânica do jogo me surpreendeu e superou em muito minhs expectativas. Realmente um pequeno grande jogo.
Note: I'm not a rocket or space physics expert. I just like sandbox games like SimpleRockets.
This was the very first game I purchased on Steam. I discovered it after doing a Google search for a rocket simulator (I was pining for Ye Goode Ole Days of Microsoft Space Simulator). I never heard of Steam before so had I not done that Google Search, I would never have found out about Steam, or the great games I've gotten including this one.
And SimpleRockets is a great sandbox game. Some people might turn their noses up at the graphics and balk at playing a 2D game, but there's really a lot of playtime you can get out of this game.
You can build rockets of various sizes, shapes, and functionality. You can orbit planets and moons, land on them (or crash if things go wrong). You can even build space stations and dock with them.
The Newtonian physics work pretty well on a 2D universe and because it is a 2D universe you can run this game on even the most potatoey of computer and tablet potatoes.
There is a sandbox mode as well as challenges and if you do not know anything about making rockets fly, the tutorials will help you along.
Certainly worth the buy even though Junroo's attention is now focussed on the successor to this game, SimpleRockets 2.
这个游戏整体上还不错，基本上就是自己造火箭，车什么的 ，[spoiler]有点难,不建议不熟悉这类游戏的人买，而且很耗时间[/spoiler]可以趁打折的时候3块钱（rmb）入手。
bug：[spoiler]玩了一个月后放了几个月没玩，然后一启动就闪退After playing for a month, I didn't play for a few months, and then flashed back when I started it again[/spoiler]
very good
I prefer this one to simplerockets 2, it's 2D and still nice and challenging.
EU ACHO MEIO DIFICIL DE CONSTRUIR
simple graphics but fun
not as much fun as it looks
best orbital mechanics
The easiest and cheapest way to start traveling in space, exploring it with realistic orbital mechanics. Soon, the 2d version will no longer be enough, and then it will move you to the 3d version.
Nothing like KSP.
Go play KSP it's way easier to play and lots more fun then this game.
I had high hopes for this game but sadly it was a big let down.
If you can get it for a dollar grab it other then that avoid it.
A very simple rocket simulator don't expect much detail, but it's good for couple hours of fun. For lot more detail other games would do better.
An easy and fun to play game!
