Project Ares

Project Ares: Mars Rover Demo

Land anywhere on Mars and explore its landscape.

This is a small browser demo of a pixel-art Mars explorer built purely with Claude Code. Pick a landing site and set out in a rover across ground that comes from NASA and USGS elevation and surface data. The craters, canyons and volcano slopes you see are shaped by the real planet.

What you can do

• Choose where to land. Open the world map and pick a surveyed site, such as Hellas Planitia, Olympus Mons, Valles Marineris or Ares Vallis. Or click any bare ground on the planet and land there.
• Drive a rover. Steer it with WASD, or click to send it to a point and Shift+click to chain waypoints. It finds its own way around obstacles and cannot climb cliffs, so you plan around them.
• Clear the fog. You start with only your landing site known. The ground is revealed as you drive.
• Send out more rovers. Dispatch extra rovers from the world map at any time and switch between them with Tab.
• Watch the day pass. The sun moves and the light and shadows change with it. The music is generated live and follows the time of day.
• See where you've been. A mini map and a full-screen map of everything you've revealed show your route.

Controls

• W A S D: drive the rover
• Click: drive to a point
• Shift + click: add a waypoint
• Tab: switch rover
• Right-drag: look around
• Mouse wheel: zoom
• Q / E: turn the view
• M: world map
• O: map of the revealed ground
• N: mini map
• H: hide the panels

Notes Your position is saved in your browser. It runs in a desktop browser and works best in a large window; it hasn't been tested on phones or tablets.

Credits Terrain uses NASA and USGS Mars data (MOLA elevation, THEMIS imagery, and the Robbins crater catalogue). Built with TypeScript and Phaser.