How to play
PUCK BLITZ is neon air hockey. Your mallet is the glowing blue ring, the bot (or your friend) has the pink one, and the yellow puck slides between you. Knock the puck into the goal at the far end. First to 7 wins.
On a computer you do not need to click at all: move the mouse and the mallet follows the pointer, staying inside your own half of the table. You can also steer it with the arrow keys or W A S D. On a phone or tablet, drag your finger anywhere on your half. Hold the phone upright and the table stands upright with you at the bottom; turn it sideways (or play on a wide screen) and the table lies on its side with you on the left.
The puck only slows a little as it glides, so how hard you hit it matters. A gentle push nudges it, a fast swipe through it sends it screaming down the table. It bounces off the side rails, so you can bank it round a defender. When someone scores, the puck is put back on the table, sitting still in the half of the player who just let the goal in, so they get the next hit.
At the start of every match against the bot your mallet pulses and an arrow points at the puck until you move, so new players know what to grab. Esc or P pauses (so does switching tabs), R restarts the match and M turns the sound off and on. On the results screen, Space, Enter or R starts a rematch.
Tips and strategy
- Hit through the puck, not at it. The speed of your mallet at the moment of contact is what the puck gets. Start your swing a little way back and move through the puck, rather than parking the mallet on top of it.
- Bank it. A straight shot runs into the bot's mallet sitting in front of its goal. A shot off a side rail comes in at an angle and is much harder to cover. Easy and Medium bots do not see bank shots coming; Hard does, so mix it up against Hard.
- Get back after you shoot. Drift back towards the middle of your goal after each hit.
- Use the serve. If you conceded, the puck waits still in your half. Line up a proper shot instead of tapping it back.
- Climb the ladder. Win on Easy and the results screen offers a button to try Medium, then Hard. Each difficulty you beat lights up its star on the title screen.
What's in it
VS BOT has three difficulties. They differ in how fast the bot's mallet moves, how quickly it reacts, how accurately it aims and whether it predicts bank shots. The Easy bot's mallet moves at half the speed of the Medium one, and Hard is faster again, reacts quickest, aims best and is the only one that reads shots off the rails. A typical match lasts a minute or two.
2 PLAYERS is one phone or tablet shared between two people, blue against pink. Each finger belongs to whichever half it first touched, so both of you can play at the same time. On an upright phone, the big GOAL! and MATCH POINT messages appear twice, one facing each player.
Every goal flashes the goal mouth in the scorer's colour with a shockwave, a screen shake and a big GOAL! message. Hard smashes throw sparks and freeze the action for a split second. The results screen shows the score, your top shot speed, your longest rally and the match time, plus badges for a first win on a difficulty, a new best win streak, a shutout or your hardest shot ever. The puck tops out at about 112 km/h. Behind the title screen, two bots play against each other.
Questions
Why can't I move my mallet past the middle?
That is the rule in air hockey: each player stays in their own half.
Can two people play on a computer?
The mouse always controls the blue mallet, so 2 PLAYERS is really made for a touch screen, where each player drags on their own half.
Does it save?
Yes, in your own browser: your wins and losses on each difficulty, your current and best win streak, your hardest shot, the last difficulty you picked and whether sound is on. Clearing your browser's site data clears the save.