We are often asked about the inspiration for Rover Run. We’ve been huge fans of space exploration and the amazing accomplishments since the early days of the Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo programs (yep, that long)! This continues today with the recent Mars landings, the fantastic success and trajectory of SpaceX, and many others.
One in particular is the NASA Curiosity Rover that landed in Gale Crater on Mars in 2012. The spectacular landing system (see video below), where the rover was lowered on cables from the descent stage, was a huge inspiration for Rover Run. We had the thought “What if you wanted to get the rover back?”! Thus Rover Run was conceived and launched as our own little “space program”.
Charles Warren, whose Ph.D. work in Mechanical Engineering was focused on robotics and computer control, designed and built Rover Run, its flight controls, etc. He founded Simulation Mobile, Inc. to bring simulation technology to mobile devices. Rover Run is one of the fun successes of that work. We hope you have as much fun playing it as we did building it!