Hacker ApprovedDepartments

Starfling

Ranked 2 of 48 browser games by recommenders

A simple one-tap orbital slingshot game people find fun, clean and addictive. Most common caveat: on-screen text often covers the ball.

A simple one-tap orbital slingshot game people find fun, clean and addictive. Most common caveat: on-screen text often covers the ball.

76 people gave an opinion

recommend it
59
criticize it
17
approval share
78%
Each figure is one person. RecommendsCriticizes

Recommended in 1 of 13 months

  1. November 2025: not recommended
  2. December 2025: not recommended
  3. January 2026: not recommended
  4. February 2026: not recommended
  5. March 2026: not recommended
  6. April 2026: recommended
  7. May 2026: not recommended
  8. June 2026: not recommended
  9. July 2026: not recommended
  10. August 2026: not recommended
  11. September 2026: not recommended
  12. October 2026: not recommended
  13. November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)

Why it doesn’t carry the badge

  • 59 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
  • 3.5 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, met.
  • Recommended in 1 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, not met.

The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works

What people say about it

The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.

Why people recommend it

Each mark is one comment

  • Simple, fun, addictive one-tap gameplay

    “I cannot express to you how much fun this simple little game is!”

    Comment from 11 Apr 2026 in “Starfling: A one-tap endless orbital slingshot game in a single HTML file”

    “Really nice and very fast becoming addicted :D.”

    Comment from 11 Apr 2026 in “Starfling: A one-tap endless orbital slingshot game in a single HTML file”

    “I loved the simplicity, it was fun!”

    Comment from 11 Apr 2026 in “Starfling: A one-tap endless orbital slingshot game in a single HTML file”
  • Orbit and gravity feel satisfying

    “i love the gravity. but sometimes the orbital speed is to fast to be able to make the next jump.”

    Comment from 11 Apr 2026 in “Starfling: A one-tap endless orbital slingshot game in a single HTML file”

    “The dotted line starting wide and slowly shrinking to the real orbit is a great touch.”

    Comment from 11 Apr 2026 in “Starfling: A one-tap endless orbital slingshot game in a single HTML file”
  • Clean look and nice audio

    “Neat, and nice audio, but I wish it were a little more forgiving.”

    Comment from 11 Apr 2026 in “Starfling: A one-tap endless orbital slingshot game in a single HTML file”

    “I love this and it’s very clean.”

    Comment from 11 Apr 2026 in “Starfling: A one-tap endless orbital slingshot game in a single HTML file”

    “Looks and plays quite nicely.”

    Comment from 11 Apr 2026 in “Starfling: A one-tap endless orbital slingshot game in a single HTML file”

What people warn about

Each mark is one comment

  • Popup text covers the ball

    “on mobile the quick/fast/blazing/skip text often blocks vision of the ball making it harder than it should be to make combos”

    Comment from 11 Apr 2026 in “Starfling: A one-tap endless orbital slingshot game in a single HTML file”

    “It’s great but the animations when catching a new orbit (sparks and combo announcements) is making hard to follow the ball”

    Comment from 11 Apr 2026 in “Starfling: A one-tap endless orbital slingshot game in a single HTML file”

    “Fun game, though a difficulty of playing it on a phone is your primed finger gets in the way of seeing the ball!”

    Comment from 11 Apr 2026 in “Starfling: A one-tap endless orbital slingshot game in a single HTML file”
  • Low contrast, hard-to-read text

    “Fun, but dark grey text on a dark background? Bit hard to read a bunch of the text.”

    Comment from 11 Apr 2026 in “Starfling: A one-tap endless orbital slingshot game in a single HTML file”

    “the contrast is too low for my old eyes. I can't see the orbit most of the time”

    Comment from 11 Apr 2026 in “Starfling: A one-tap endless orbital slingshot game in a single HTML file”
  • Game speed varies by device or browser

    “On a Pixel 10 Pro with Firefox it's not too bad but it's definitely a touch less responsive than on Chrome”

    Comment from 11 Apr 2026 in “Starfling: A one-tap endless orbital slingshot game in a single HTML file”

    “the game is much faster on desktop, looks like it's maybe not framerate independent?”

    Comment from 11 Apr 2026 in “Starfling: A one-tap endless orbital slingshot game in a single HTML file”

    “Very fun! If you play it on a big monitor, the games slows down for some reason.”

    Comment from 11 Apr 2026 in “Starfling: A one-tap endless orbital slingshot game in a single HTML file”

Other browser games people recommend

The four most recommended other browser games, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.

Starfling compared with 4 alternatives
ProductRecommendCriticizeApprovalMonthsOwnedBadge
TinyWind611976%1——
StarflingThis page591778%1——
Starcraft: Ashfall461279%1——
Half-Life 2 in a Browser421179%6—Approved
Number Gacha331175%1——
See all 48 browser games, ranked

What people said

40 of the 77 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.

“the way zoom out works is really nice. retry and abort, all there.”

MixedComment from 12 Apr 2026 in “Starfling: A one-tap endless orbital slingshot game in a single HTML file”

“too much stability though compare to Lunar Lander”

MixedComment from 12 Apr 2026 in “Starfling: A one-tap endless orbital slingshot game in a single HTML file”

“the physics don't really match reasonable expectations”

MixedComment from 12 Apr 2026 in “Starfling: A one-tap endless orbital slingshot game in a single HTML file”

“Nice! For my taste you could remove the TAP OR PRESS bar after some time”

RecommendsComment from 11 Apr 2026 in “Starfling: A one-tap endless orbital slingshot game in a single HTML file”

“the marketing is deceptive and through me off at first”

MixedComment from 11 Apr 2026 in “Starfling: A one-tap endless orbital slingshot game in a single HTML file”

“This game is so fun, great job.”

RecommendsComment from 11 Apr 2026 in “Starfling: A one-tap endless orbital slingshot game in a single HTML file”

“Lush, perfect to take my mind off existing for a few minutes.”

RecommendsComment from 11 Apr 2026 in “Starfling: A one-tap endless orbital slingshot game in a single HTML file”

“Game is fun, sure the mechanics aren't like real transfers but this appears to be a quick reflex challenge”

MixedComment from 11 Apr 2026 in “Starfling: A one-tap endless orbital slingshot game in a single HTML file”

“the contrast is too low for my old eyes. I can't see the orbit most of the time”

MixedComment from 11 Apr 2026 in “Starfling: A one-tap endless orbital slingshot game in a single HTML file”

“This is an excellent and distinctly frustrating game”

RecommendsComment from 11 Apr 2026 in “Starfling: A one-tap endless orbital slingshot game in a single HTML file”

“I cannot express to you how much fun this simple little game is!”

RecommendsComment from 11 Apr 2026 in “Starfling: A one-tap endless orbital slingshot game in a single HTML file”

“Fun game, though a difficulty of playing it on a phone is your primed finger gets in the way of seeing the ball!”

MixedComment from 11 Apr 2026 in “Starfling: A one-tap endless orbital slingshot game in a single HTML file”

“I like it! One complaint is that if you are going fast it starts to display a "Quick!" message on top of the middle of the screen.”

MixedComment from 11 Apr 2026 in “Starfling: A one-tap endless orbital slingshot game in a single HTML file”

“On a Pixel 10 Pro with Firefox it's not too bad but it's definitely a touch less responsive than on Chrome”

MixedComment from 11 Apr 2026 in “Starfling: A one-tap endless orbital slingshot game in a single HTML file”

“i love the gravity. but sometimes the orbital speed is to fast to be able to make the next jump.”

MixedComment from 11 Apr 2026 in “Starfling: A one-tap endless orbital slingshot game in a single HTML file”

“Love this! Only request is don't display Godlike etc where you are”

RecommendsComment from 11 Apr 2026 in “Starfling: A one-tap endless orbital slingshot game in a single HTML file”

“Very fun! If you play it on a big monitor, the games slows down for some reason.”

MixedComment from 11 Apr 2026 in “Starfling: A one-tap endless orbital slingshot game in a single HTML file”

“Really low frame rate on Firefox on Android (pixel 10)”

MixedComment from 11 Apr 2026 in “Starfling: A one-tap endless orbital slingshot game in a single HTML file”

“The text that pops up in the middle obscures the current position making it hard to immediately launch again.”

CriticizesComment from 11 Apr 2026 in “Starfling: A one-tap endless orbital slingshot game in a single HTML file”

“The dotted line starting wide and slowly shrinking to the real orbit is a great touch.”

RecommendsComment from 11 Apr 2026 in “Starfling: A one-tap endless orbital slingshot game in a single HTML file”

“It’s great but the animations when catching a new orbit (sparks and combo announcements) is making hard to follow the ball”

MixedComment from 11 Apr 2026 in “Starfling: A one-tap endless orbital slingshot game in a single HTML file”

“Neat, and nice audio, but I wish it were a little more forgiving.”

MixedComment from 11 Apr 2026 in “Starfling: A one-tap endless orbital slingshot game in a single HTML file”

“I love this and it’s very clean.”

RecommendsComment from 11 Apr 2026 in “Starfling: A one-tap endless orbital slingshot game in a single HTML file”

“Looks and plays quite nicely.”

RecommendsComment from 11 Apr 2026 in “Starfling: A one-tap endless orbital slingshot game in a single HTML file”

“Super cool, super addictive :-)”

RecommendsComment from 11 Apr 2026 in “Starfling: A one-tap endless orbital slingshot game in a single HTML file”

“the game is much faster on desktop, looks like it's maybe not framerate independent?”

CriticizesComment from 11 Apr 2026 in “Starfling: A one-tap endless orbital slingshot game in a single HTML file”

“I loved the simplicity, it was fun!”

MixedComment from 11 Apr 2026 in “Starfling: A one-tap endless orbital slingshot game in a single HTML file”

“I actually love the idea of opening the game and then not playing resulting in a negative score.”

RecommendsComment from 11 Apr 2026 in “Starfling: A one-tap endless orbital slingshot game in a single HTML file”

“the tap to release controls are unintuitive for me”

MixedComment from 11 Apr 2026 in “Starfling: A one-tap endless orbital slingshot game in a single HTML file”

“But the text does get in the way mid-combo.”

MixedComment from 11 Apr 2026 in “Starfling: A one-tap endless orbital slingshot game in a single HTML file”

“Really nice and very fast becoming addicted :D.”

RecommendsComment from 11 Apr 2026 in “Starfling: A one-tap endless orbital slingshot game in a single HTML file”

“Right now the first 5 or so times you miss. Probably the first 5 times you try.”

MixedComment from 11 Apr 2026 in “Starfling: A one-tap endless orbital slingshot game in a single HTML file”

“Fun concept for the format too — games are the perfect use case.”

RecommendsComment from 11 Apr 2026 in “Starfling: A one-tap endless orbital slingshot game in a single HTML file”

“Fun :) Small idea for improvement: the "fast" text is often over the same space as the ball”

MixedComment from 11 Apr 2026 in “Starfling: A one-tap endless orbital slingshot game in a single HTML file”

“Fun, but dark grey text on a dark background? Bit hard to read a bunch of the text.”

MixedComment from 11 Apr 2026 in “Starfling: A one-tap endless orbital slingshot game in a single HTML file”

“Good fun, my highest was 30, it took a while!”

RecommendsComment from 11 Apr 2026 in “Starfling: A one-tap endless orbital slingshot game in a single HTML file”

“It also makes it feel like a game happening in earths atmosphere instead of space, it impacts the possible sense of scale.”

MixedComment from 11 Apr 2026 in “Starfling: A one-tap endless orbital slingshot game in a single HTML file”

“on mobile the quick/fast/blazing/skip text often blocks vision of the ball making it harder than it should be to make combos”

MixedComment from 11 Apr 2026 in “Starfling: A one-tap endless orbital slingshot game in a single HTML file”

“the way they fly doesn't quite match my intuition”

MixedComment from 11 Apr 2026 in “Starfling: A one-tap endless orbital slingshot game in a single HTML file”

“Nice job. Consider allowing the use of a key (Z, spacebar, etc) in addition to the mouse.”

RecommendsComment from 9 Apr 2026 in “Starfling: A one-tap endless orbital slingshot game in a single HTML file”

Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.