WRECKING BALL

One crane, one wrecking ball, 30 seconds: knock the whole block down.

WRECKING BALL All games

WRECKING BALL

One crane, one wrecking ball, 30 seconds: knock the whole block down.

You do not throw the ball. You drive the trolley it hangs from, and the trolley is slow on purpose, so the big hits come from rocking it in time with the swing until the ball is flying. Every building is made of physics blocks welded together. Snap the columns low down and the floors above pancake into the street, and every brick, window and car that falls pays. Gas tanks explode and set each other off, water towers burst, cars crumple and set off their alarms, and a big enough collapse drops the game into slow motion.

There are fifteen blocks in three districts: Old Town brick and timber, Downtown glass towers and Industrial steel, smokestacks and tank farms. Each block has a target to beat and three stars to earn. Every dollar of damage goes into the bank, pass or fail, and the Garage spends it on a heavier ball, a longer cable, spikes and a second ball on a chain.

What is in it: Cartoon buildings, cars and gas tanks get smashed, crumple and explode into dust and fireballs. There are no people in it and nobody gets hurt. More for parents

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Controls

  • A D / ← →move the trolley along the jib
  • W S / ↑ ↓ / wheelwind the cable up and down
  • Dragthe trolley chases the pointer
  • Rinstant retry
  • Esc / Ppause
  • Enter / Spacemenu button
  • Touch: dragmove the trolley
  • Touch: slidercable up and down
Drive the trolley against the ball's swing, left as it swings right and back again, and four or five pumps will build more speed than holding one key ever will.

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How to play

WRECKING BALL puts you in the cab of a tower crane above a city block, with a wrecking ball hanging from the jib. You have 30 seconds. Every brick, beam, window and car has a price, and the counter in the top left adds up what you have broken.

You move the trolley the ball hangs from, not the ball. A and D (or the left and right arrows) drive the trolley along the jib, and W and S (or the up and down arrows, or the mouse wheel) wind the cable up and down. You can also drag anywhere with the mouse or a finger, and the trolley chases the pointer. The ball is a real pendulum on a rope, and the trolley is slow on purpose, so you cannot just drag the ball into a wall. Big hits come from rocking the trolley back and forth in time with the swing, the way you pump a playground swing, until the ball is flying.

Buildings are physics blocks welded together. Hit a column hard enough and its welds snap, and whatever was standing on it comes down. A block pays half its price when it is knocked out of place, up to the other half as it takes damage, and the rest when it is destroyed. Knock down 62 per cent of a building's value and it counts as DEMOLISHED, worth a bonus of a quarter of that building's whole value.

When the clock hits zero you get 2.6 more seconds of settling, and anything still falling keeps paying. R retries at once, and Esc pauses.

Tips and strategy

  • Pump, do not drag. Move the trolley against the ball's swing: when the ball swings right, drive left, then turn around as it comes back.
  • Go for the legs. A column holds up every floor above it. Break the lowest columns you can reach and the top falls on its own.
  • Use the cable as part of the swing. Lower it to reach the bottom of the arc, and wind it up as the ball rises to whip it higher. With the starting cable the ball never gets lower than about the second floor, and on the tallest Downtown blocks it stays three floors up. The first step of the Longer cable lowers it by about a floor, and only the second step reaches the street.
  • Keep the chain alive. Any payout of $1.2K or more within 1.2 seconds of the last one keeps the chain going. The chain steps up once every quarter of a second of non-stop wrecking, and each step adds 4 per cent to everything, up to triple money.
  • Swing into the gas tanks. A red tank explodes, breaks the welds around it and sets off any other tank nearby. On the Industrial blocks a single good hit can start a chain reaction across a whole tank farm.
  • Topple tall into short. Tip a tower so it falls across its neighbour. Two buildings coming down at once is the easiest way to set off the slow-motion MEGA COLLAPSE.
  • Fail forward. Every dollar goes into the bank, even on a round that misses the target.

What's in it

Fifteen city blocks in three districts, five in each. Old Town (Main Street, Market Row, Clock Square, Water Works, Old Quarter) is brick, stucco and timber row houses with shops on the ground floor, clock towers and wooden water towers. Downtown (Glass Avenue, Billboard Blvd, Setback Plaza, Twin Peaks, Skyline) is concrete and glass towers up to twelve floors, with setbacks, billboards and antennas. Industrial (Rail Yard, Smokestacks, Tank Farm, Steel Mill, Meltdown) is braced steel frames, metal sheds, brick smokestacks, gas tank farms and a steel water tower. Prices rise by district: Downtown pays one and a half times Old Town, and Industrial pays 2.4 times.

The street has its own bonus targets. Cars crumple, dent, flatten and set off their alarms. Water towers burst with a splash. Street lamps snap. Glass shatters into glinting shards and steel throws sparks.

The Garage spends your bank on four upgrades: a heavier ball in three steps ($1M, $2.5M, $5.5M, taking it from 26 to 72 in weight), a longer cable in two steps ($1.2M and $3M), a spiked ball that does double damage and tears welds apart ($4M), and a second ball on a chain that whips through whatever the first one misses ($7M), about $24M for the lot. The spikes and the chain can be switched off.

Questions

How many stars are there?

Three per block, 45 in all. The first star on a block is its target and opens the next block, and it is set low. The third asks for about 1.3 times what the game's own pumping bot scores with the starting gear, so it usually takes upgrades or very good timing.

What sets off slow motion?

A huge burst of damage in under a second. The camera pushes in slightly, black bars close in from the top and bottom, and the banner reads MEGA COLLAPSE, or CHAIN REACTION if a gas tank went up just before. Slow motion also stretches the clock, because the round runs in game time.

Does it save?

Yes, in your own browser: your bank, best score and stars on each block, which blocks are open, the upgrades you own and which are switched on, and your sound settings. Clearing your browser's site data clears the save.

Can I play on a phone?

Yes. Drag anywhere to move the trolley, and use the cable slider on the right of the screen to raise and lower the ball. It works in portrait and landscape.

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