Leaderboard
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About Talon
Talon is a gravity cave flyer played with five buttons: rotate left, rotate right, thrust, fire and grab. You start on a pad on the surface of a small planet. Somewhere at the bottom of the cavern under it sits a glowing core. Fly down, take it in the claw under your ship, and carry it back up into the sky. Lifting the core starts a meltdown clock, and the turrets on the way down are still there on the way up.
The claw also picks up crystals and stranded survivors, but everything you carry makes the ship heavier. Nothing scores until you land on a pad, and the more you bank in one go the bigger the bonus. If you lose the ship, you lose whatever you were carrying.
How to play
- Rotate: ←/→ or A/D. Thrust: ↑ or W. The engine pushes the way the nose points.
- Fire: Space or X. Grab: ↓, S, Shift or Z. The claw reaches out from the belly of the ship, so hover above what you want.
- Pads: land slowly and upright to refuel, repair, bank your cargo and set a checkpoint.
- Hitting rock gently costs a little hull. Hitting it fast costs the ship.
- A gamepad works too: d-pad to fly, A to fire, B to grab, Start to pause.
Scoring
- Turrets and drones score when you shoot them. The reactor in the core chamber shuts every turret down for a few seconds.
- Crystals and survivors score when you bank them on a pad, with a bulk bonus of 10% for every extra item in the same load.
- Each cleared cavern pays for the core, the seconds left on the meltdown clock, beating par time, accuracy, an undamaged hull and collecting everything.
- An extra ship every 25,000 points.
Tips
- Turn before you burn. Short bursts are easier to control than holding the engine down.
- Bank often in the early caverns. A full hold is slow, and slow ships get shot.
- Shoot the reactor before you take the core. The way back up is quieter with the guns off.
- With the core in the claw, rotate gently. It swings with the ship and can be knocked loose.
FAQ
Is it free? Do I need an account? It's free, paid for by ads. No account: you only type a name if you want to post a score.
Does it work on a phone? It loads with five touch pads, but it is built for a keyboard.
Is every cavern the same for everyone? Yes. Each cavern number is built from a fixed seed, so leaderboard scores compare the same caverns.
What inspired it? The five-button cave flyers of the 1980s and early '90s, Rotor in particular, plus Thrust and Gravitar. The weighted hold, banking and the meltdown clock are our additions.
More games like this
- Moonhaul — the same kind of thrust and gravity, with your cargo on a cable instead of in a claw.
- Driftbreak — thrust and momentum in open space, with nothing to crash into but the rocks.
- Starhive — if you're mostly here for the shooting.
Or read how to build a fair procedural world — one of our write-ups on how these games are made.