About SimpleRockets 2
So I used to mess around with this other space game that worked fine for a year, then an update broke everything and the devs just ghosted. Figured I’d try SimpleRockets 2 since it’s been around a while and people still talk about it. First thing I noticed is this isn’t some kiddie tap-and-go thing — you actually have to think about fuel, thrust, aerodynamics, all that. I spent my first evening just failing to get a simple two-stage rocket past the atmosphere, and honestly that felt more real than the other app ever did. It’s got planets, moons, and you can fly basically anywhere if your design doesn’t explode. The physics feels weighty, like you’re fighting gravity for real. Wednesday night I finally landed on the moon and my wife thought I was crazy for getting excited about a phone game at 2 AM. But that moment was worth the download alone.
Features & Highlights
There’s a sandbox mode where you can build whatever dumb rocket you want and watch it fail spectacularly. I’ve made some absolute disasters — things that wobble, flip over, or just shake apart at 5,000 meters. The part selection is decent: engines, fuel tanks, nose cones, fins, struts, separators, even wheels and landing gear if you’re feeling ambitious. You can also build rovers, space stations, and planes, though I haven’t gotten that far. Career mode gives you missions and a budget, so you can’t just spam the biggest engine every time. That’s where the real challenge is for me — working within limitations. There’s also a community where people upload their designs, and I grabbed a few to see how the pros do it. Some of them are insane, like fully functional space shuttles and replicas of real rockets. You can download them and fly them yourself, which saved me hours of trial and error.
User Experience
The interface took me a solid day to get comfortable with. Drag and drop parts, rotate them, connect fuel lines, set staging order — it’s not obvious at first. I crashed my first dozen rockets because I forgot to stage the parachute or put the engine on upside down. There’s a tutorial but it’s pretty basic, so you’ll be googling stuff on your own. The 3D graphics look fine on my iPhone 14, nothing mind-blowing but clean enough to tell what’s what. Touch controls for flying are okay — you tilt your phone to steer and tap buttons for throttle and staging. It works but I’ve definitely overcorrected and spun into the ground more than once. One thing that bugged me: saving and loading designs isn’t super intuitive. I lost a build because I didn’t realize it auto-saves weird. Once you figure out the quirks though, it’s actually fun to mess around with. I found myself spending hours just tweaking one rocket to hit a higher altitude.
Pricing
This app costs money upfront — no free trial, no “download for free and pay later” nonsense. I checked the price on my card and it was a few bucks, which honestly feels reasonable for what you get. No ads, no in-app purchases, no subscription begging you every time you open it. That’s a huge relief because I’m sick of apps that trap you with microtransactions. You pay once and you get everything, including future updates as far as I can tell. For someone like me who tests every free feature before committing, it was a risk because you can’t try before you buy. But after three days, I don’t feel ripped off. It’s clearly a labor of love, not a cash grab. Just wish I could have tested it for an hour first to make sure it ran okay on my phone.
Updates & Support
Okay, here’s the part that almost made me give this a lower rating. I had an issue where my rocket designs kept disappearing from the save slots. I emailed support on a Friday afternoon. Got an automated reply saying they’d get back to me. Monday morning came and nothing. I sent a follow-up. Finally Tuesday evening I get a short message saying “try reinstalling the app” — no apology, no explanation, no solving my actual problem. I tried reinstalling and lost everything anyway. So that really stung. The developer seems to update the app occasionally based on the changelog I saw, but support feels like an afterthought. If you run into trouble, don’t expect a quick fix. For a paid app, that’s disappointing. I hope they improve this because a good game with bad support is hard to recommend to friends.
Security & Privacy
It asked for basically no permissions when I installed it — no location, no contacts, no camera access. That’s rare these days and I appreciate it. It does need internet access for the community features and downloading other people’s rockets, but you can play the whole game offline if you want. I didn’t see any sketchy data collection prompts or ads trying to track me. The privacy policy is the usual legal stuff, but nothing stood out as creepy. For a paid game, I’d expect it to be clean, and it is. Feels safe to have on my phone, which is more than I can say for a lot of free apps that sell your info. If you care about that stuff, SimpleRockets 2 seems solid.
