How to play
Two small tanks start somewhere in a maze. A single hit knocks a tank out, and the last tank driving wins the round. The first player to win five rounds takes the match. You can also play first to 3 or first to 7.
- Two players, one keyboard. Red drives with W A S D and fires with Space. Teal drives with the arrow keys and fires with Enter (or Numpad 0). Left and right turn the tank, up drives forward and down reverses.
- Gamepads work too: the left stick or the d-pad drives, A fires. The first pad is Red, the second is Teal.
- On a phone, hold it sideways. Each player owns one half of the screen: put a thumb down anywhere on your half and drag to steer, then tap the round button to fire.
- Playing alone? Choose vs Bot and pick Easy, Normal or Hard. You can use either set of keys.
- P or Esc pauses. The game also pauses by itself when you switch tabs.
Ricochets
Every shell bounces off the walls. A shell lives for about nine seconds or fourteen bounces, whichever comes first, and you can have five of your own in the air at once. Holding the fire button does not keep shooting: each shell needs its own press.
Your own shells can hit you. They leave the barrel safely, but a shell that comes back off a wall is just as deadly to you as to your rival. If both tanks are destroyed within a moment of each other, the round is a draw and nobody scores. A round that runs for two full minutes also ends in a draw.
Shifting walls
Some walls in each maze are yellow-and-black striped barriers. Every eight seconds one group of gates slides shut and the other group slides open, so the shortcut you used a moment ago may be gone. A barrier’s warning lamp blinks for just over a second before it closes, and it never closes on a tank or a shell: it waits until the way is clear. The sandbag walls never move, and the maze is built so that the two tanks can always reach each other, with every gate open or shut. If you prefer a still maze, switch Shifting walls off on the menu.
Power-ups
A power-up crate appears every seven seconds, with at most two on the board, and vanishes after about nineteen seconds. Drive over one to pick it up.
- Triple shot (purple): your next three shots fire a fan of three shells.
- Rapid fire (orange): hold the fire button for a stream of thirty small, fast shells that only bounce twice.
- Shield (blue): a bubble that stops one shell. It fades after ten seconds.
Strategy
Shoot at walls, not at tanks. A straight shot is easy to dodge. A shell aimed at a corner comes back from an angle your rival is not watching.
Count your shells. With five shells already bouncing around, you cannot fire again until one fades. That is the moment to back off.
Never fire into a wall right in front of you. The shell comes straight back. Turn first, then shoot.
Watch the blinking gates. A closing gate can cut off your escape route, or block the shot you just fired. It can also shield you from a shell that was about to arrive.
Use the bot to practise. The Hard bot traces shell paths and looks for bank shots, so it is a good sparring partner for learning angles.
If you would rather work together than fight, Lumen & Umbra is a co-op platformer for the same two seats at one keyboard. For another duel on one keyboard, Fuse Arena trades shells for bombs and chain reactions, and in Pop Split the two of you fire harpoons at bouncing balloons together.
If you enjoy Bounce Tanks, try Bowling Duel or Brick Bounce next.
