Playable now · Prototype climb
Vertical Lattice climb — height is score. Controls, jump physics, hazards, and Level 1 Lower Lattice are in the current build.
Mine. Build the escape ship. Climb the Lattice until you can leave.
Game Manual · First Edition
Vertical Lattice climb — height is score. Controls, jump physics, hazards, and Level 1 Lower Lattice are in the current build.
Dig → refine → fabricate → escape vehicle → automation. Mine, smelt, and print an escape craft. Roadmap — not shipped yet.
“The Lattice was built to leave. When the route failed, we learned to dig.” — Found inscription
Mine the crust. Build an escape vehicle. Automate the outpost — then climb what’s left of the old way out.
The Lattice is the ruined vertical infrastructure of an old evacuation / skyhook route — floating platforms in a warm void between crystal walls. After the collapse, the only path that still “works” is up.
The full fantasy is: dig and fabricate an escape craft so you aren’t trapped in climb-or-die forever — then return with better ships and automation. Until that loop ships in code, players experience the Lattice climb (height score, hazards, Level 1 Lower Lattice).
You still wake at the bottom. Until the escape loop ships, the climb is the playable slice — cyan platforms, height score, hazards. Dig, smelt, and escape-vehicle assembly are not in the current build.
You awaken on the lowest platform of the Lattice — a vast vertical labyrinth of emissive cyan platforms, crystal formations, and ancient machinery that has long since turned hostile. The ground below offers nothing but a death plane. The sky above holds the only exit.
Climb. Score. Survive. There is no down.
Mouse sensitivity can be adjusted in the F2 video settings panel. RTX reflections and GI samples are also tunable from the same menu — lower them on weaker hardware for a smoother frame rate.
Coyote time means you can jump for a brief window after walking off a platform edge — the game remembers you were grounded and allows the jump. This rewards confident movement.
Jump buffering means pressing Space just before you land will automatically trigger a jump on landing. Chain jumps by pressing Space slightly early rather than waiting to feel the ground.
Hold your jump button to reach maximum height. Short-tapping produces a shallow hop; holding gives full arc. Master both for precise platform routing.
The death plane sits at Y = −5 metres. Falling below this threshold instantly triggers the Dead state. Watch your footing on narrow platforms — there are no guardrails in the Lattice.
The engine uses a five-point ground cast — one centre point plus four corners of your footprint. This means you can stand reliably on platform edges and small surfaces without sliding off. Use narrow ledges and jutting corners as emergency footholds.
Your score is tied directly to how high you climb. The Lattice rewards altitude above all else.
Your HUD displays your current score and current height in real-time. Score is calculated from your highest point reached during the run — dying and respawning does not erase your peak height score.
Even failed runs accumulate score. On a fresh level, prioritise reaching new heights quickly rather than perfecting each platform — every metre you haven't reached before is guaranteed new points.
The Lattice machinery has been running without maintenance for longer than anyone knows. Much of it wants to push you back down.
A heavy mallet mounted on an arm, swinging in a fixed arc across a gap or vertical shaft. Predictable rhythm — study the swing, wait for the backswing, then cross. Common in corridor sections.
Multiple dark cubes orbiting a central axis with emissive ring markers. The cluster rotates continuously and fills vertical jump lanes. Time your jumps through the gaps between cubes rather than trying to avoid the whole cluster.
A spiked ball on a chain, swung in wide arcs. Appears in late-level challenge sections and boss approaches. The chain radius is larger than it looks — give it full clearance. These typically guard high-value height gains near the goal platform.
Open vertical drops between platform clusters. These are not obstacles themselves but fall hazards — miss a jump and there may be no platform below to catch you. Map the route before committing to a cross-gap jump.
Purple amethyst crystals embedded in walls and rising from platforms. Purely environmental — they cannot harm you, but they do obstruct sightlines and can confuse depth perception. Use the glow as a navigational landmark.
Contact with any moving obstacle kills instantly — there are no hit points. One touch returns you to the dead state. Don't get greedy near rotating hazards; the gap you saw the first time may not be there on your next pass.
The Lower Lattice is an ascending corridor of 17 platforms rising through warm orange walls lit from within. Cyan emissive platforms provide landing surfaces; purple crystal formations line the walls as ambient markers. The environment transitions from open wide platforms near the base to narrow suspended pads near the top.
The palette is warm orange walls with cool cyan platform emissives and purple accent crystals. The contrast between the warm enclosing walls and the cold floating platforms is intentional — the path is cyan, the world is orange, and the crystals tell you where to look.
Look up before you jump. The emissive cyan tops of platforms are visible from below — plan your route two or three platforms ahead rather than reacting to each jump as it comes.
Use the jump buffer. When approaching a platform edge at speed, press Space 0.1 seconds before landing to auto-trigger on contact. This removes hesitation from back-to-back jumps.
The five-point ground cast means platform edges are fully usable. A corner-land is still a land. You don't need to centre yourself on every platform — running across the very lip of a platform is valid and often faster.
Rotating hazards have consistent timing. If you miss the window, wait for the next full rotation — forcing a gap that isn't there is the most common death in mid and late sections.
Your peak height score persists across deaths in a run. After a respawn you don't need to reclimb cautiously — sprint back to your last position to resume scoring new altitude quickly.
You wake at the bottom with workable crust and ice. The vision loop is mine → refine → fabricate → assemble an escape vehicle → unlock automation and bigger ships. This first-hour checklist is design SoT — it is not playable yet.
Every ore has a clear next use within one or two tiers. The escape kit stays at nine part types so the first craft feels buildable in one session. Mass, thrust, and fuel matter — aluminum vs steel is a real trade.
Dig surface and crust for raw ore. Refine into materials. Fabricate parts. Assemble the escape vehicle, then larger ships. Automation comes online after the first escape chassis flies.
| Tier | Ore (mine) | Refined | Role |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0 · Surface | Regolith | Fill / ballast | Early terrain fill, cheap mass |
| 0 | Ice | Water / O₂ precursor | Life support, coolant, fuel chemistry later |
| 1 · Starter | Iron ore | Iron / Steel | Frames, tools, basic plating |
| 1 | Copper ore | Copper | Wire, coils, basic electronics |
| 1 | Carbonaceous rock | Carbon / Coal-analogue | Fuel for early smelters, composites later |
| 2 · Escape | Silicon sand | Silicon / Glass | Cockpit, circuits, solar |
| 2 | Aluminum ore | Aluminum | Light frames, tanks |
| 2 | Sulfur / reactive | Acids / propellant chem | Early solid/hybrid fuel grains |
| 3 · Flight | Titanium ore | Titanium | High-stress spars, thruster bells |
| 3 | Nickel ore | Nickel alloys | Heat-resistant joints, bearings |
| 4 · Advanced | Rare-earth pocket | Magnets / catalysts | Efficient motors, advanced electronics |
| 4 | Volatile ice (CH₄/NH₃) | Cryo fuel / feedstock | High-Isp thrusters |
| 5 · Endgame | Dense metal (placeholder name TBD) | Superalloy | Capital ship spines — coming |
| 5 | Exotic crystal (TBD) | Power crystals | Reactor / jump tech — coming |
Required to leave the pocket / crater. All MVE parts fabricated and assembled on a pad unlocks the first launch mission.
| Part | Materials (sketch) | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Escape chassis (pod frame) | Steel + aluminum | Physics body; seats 1 |
| Pressure hull plates | Steel / aluminum | Integrity for vacuum |
| Cockpit canopy | Glass (silicon) | Visibility |
| RCS thruster ×4 | Steel + copper coils | Attitude |
| Main thruster (chemical) | Steel + propellant chem | Boost out of gravity well |
| Propellant tank (S) | Aluminum | Paired with main thruster |
| Battery pack (S) | Copper + carbon | Bus power |
| Flight computer | Copper + silicon | Controllable craft |
| Landing legs | Steel | Soft touchdown |
Launch Up tech tree · Tiers 0–4 public · Tier 5 deferred
Fabricator unlocks Glass, Aluminum, and Propellant chem. Smelter unlocks Steel and Copper.
Launch Up runs on Ra Engine, a custom Vulkan 1.4 renderer with hardware ray tracing. The visual quality you see is physically simulated — every shadow, reflection, and emissive glow is calculated via RTX ray tracing in real-time.
Ra Engine targets RTX 2060 class hardware. Arc A380 and RX 6600 are also supported. On lower-spec cards, disabling GI samples and reflections provides the largest frame rate improvement while retaining the theatrical emissive lighting feel.
No. Dig, smelt, fabricate, and the escape vehicle are not in the current build. The playable slice is the Lattice climb — height is score. Mining is Coming / roadmap.
The vertical Lattice climb prototype: WASD + jump, coyote time and jump buffer, height scoring, hazards, and Level 1 Lower Lattice. Available on Steam.
Not claimed. Launch Up is presented as a single-player climb (now) and a single-player mine / build / escape loop (vision). No networked play is listed.
Ruined vertical infrastructure of an old evacuation / skyhook route — floating platforms in a warm void between crystal walls. It was built to leave. When the route failed, we learned to dig.