Dune Rescue
About Dune Rescue
Dune Rescue asks more of you than shooting. Ten colonists are walking a wrapping strip of sand and raiders keep dropping in to carry them off. Shoot a raider that has already picked one up and the colonist falls, so the shot is only half the job. You then have to dive, catch them in the air and set them down. Let a raider carry one all the way to the top of the sky and the colonist is gone for good, and the raider that took them comes back faster and angrier. Lose all ten and the colony goes with them, which is a different kind of failure to losing a life.
How to play
Play this one rotated, because it wants the width. Fly along the surface, shoot a raider before it carries a colonist to the top of the sky, and catch anyone knocked loose on the way down. A radar strip across the top shows the whole map.
Rules of Dune Rescue
- Ten colonists start on the sand and the count of them is the count that matters.
- A raider that carries a colonist all the way to the top of the sky kills them there and turns into a quicker enemy that hunts you instead.
- Shooting a raider mid lift pays five hundred and drops the colonist. Catching them in the air and setting them down pays another five hundred.
- A colonist dropped from height splats on landing. Catch them early or fly down with them.
- The map wraps, so flying one way long enough brings you back to where you started.
- Clearing a wave pays a bonus of one hundred points for each colonist still alive, multiplied by the wave number.
- A shock charge clears everything on screen, and you only carry a few. Every ten thousand points hands you one more, along with an extra life.
- The jump control drops you at a random spot on the map, and about one jump in seven kills you outright.
- Lose every colonist and the colony falls. Three raider waves later it is restored with ten fresh colonists.
Controls
- Arrow keys to fly
- Z or Space to fire
- X sets off a shock charge
- C jumps you to a random point on the map
- On a touchscreen the left stick flies and the button fires
What makes it worth playing
- A radar strip across the top with the whole map on it, the dune ridge included, so trouble is visible before it arrives.
- A colonist bar in the centre of the screen with one pip a head, so the thing you can lose is the thing you look at.
- Six enemy types beyond the raider, including a mine layer, a pod that splits into four when you shoot it, and a saucer that turns up when a wave drags on.
- Wave after wave with no level select, and a score bonus that rewards a clean rescue record.
Screenshots
Captured from this build on 2026-09-14.
Tips from playing it
- Shoot the raider that is already carrying someone before the one that is not. A carried colonist is on a clock.
- Catch by flying under a falling colonist and matching their drop, rather than charging at them.
- Read the radar before you turn. Half the enemies that kill you were never on your screen.
- Take your time on a wave and a white saucer arrives to hurry you along, then keeps arriving every fifteen seconds. Clear the landers before it shows up.
Why this game is here, and what we changed
The colonist count is the only thing in this game you truly lose, and it used to sit in a corner as a number. It is now a row of ten pips across the centre of the screen under the word COLONISTS, and the label turns red the moment the colony falls. The setting moved to a desert to go with it: sand fill under a lit amber ridge, a near black aubergine sky, a bone coloured ship and cold cyan raiders that separate from all of it. We resisted shrinking the radar to make room. It runs the full width of the screen with the ridge and a viewport box drawn on it, and it earns every pixel.
More on how we pick and fix these: how we make our own editions of classic games and how we test a game.
- Category
- Shooting
- Plays in
- Your browser, no download
- Orientation
- Landscape
- Players
- One pilot, ten colonists, and everything else on the map is hostile.
- Difficulty
- Landers, mutants, bombers, mines, pods, swarmers and a saucer that arrives when you dawdle, all in a world that wraps, so half of what kills you was behind you.
- Typical session
- Three to eight minutes before it takes the last colonist.
- Last tested by us
- 2026-09-14
