How to play
Snowball Siege is a snowball fight in a snowy schoolyard, seen from above. Red holds the left half, Blue holds the right half, and a rope with little flags runs down the middle that nobody may cross. Each half has a few walls of packed snow to hide behind. Hit your rival with a snowball to score. The first player to land five hits wins the match, and you can pick three or seven on the menu instead.
- Red walks with W A S D and throws with Space.
- Blue walks with the arrow keys and throws with Enter.
- Gamepads work too: the stick or d-pad walks, A throws. The first pad is Red, the second is Blue.
- On a phone, hold it sideways. Each player owns one half of the screen: drag on your half to walk, and use the snowflake button on the outer edge to throw.
- Playing alone? Choose vs Bot and pick Easy, Normal or Hard.
- P or Esc pauses. The game also pauses by itself when you switch tabs.
Packing snow
You start every round with two snowballs, shown as little white balls above your hat. To make more, stand still. After a moment your kid crouches down and starts packing snow, and a white ring around their feet fills up. Every time the ring closes you gain a snowball, up to four. Take a single step and the half-made snowball falls apart, so pick a safe spot first.
Crouching also makes you smaller, and a kid crouching right behind a snow wall cannot be hit by a straight throw at all. That is the whole idea of a fort: hide, pack, then pop out.
Two ways to throw
Your throws always fly towards your rival, so you never have to aim by hand. What you choose is how you throw.
Tap the button for a straight throw. The snowball flies fast and low. It is aimed at where your rival is heading, not where they are standing, so someone running in a straight line gets caught. Change direction and it sails past. A straight throw that hits a snow wall chips it.
Hold the button and let go for a lob. After a short moment a dashed ring appears on the snow and slides further away the longer you hold. That ring is where the snowball will land. When you let go, it arcs high over every wall and splashes down, hitting anyone close to the ring, including you if you wander under your own throw. A lob that lands on a wall takes a big bite out of it. Everyone can see the landing ring, so a lob works best on a rival who is busy crouching and packing.
Each snow wall takes three hits. Straight throws chip one piece, a lob landing on top takes two, and a wall with no snow left is gone for the rest of the round.
Blizzard
If a round drags on for about twenty seconds, a blizzard rolls in. Snow swirls across the screen and the forts start wearing away on their own, one chunk at a time, until there is nowhere left to hide. If nobody scores within about fifty seconds, the round is snowed out and replayed with no point. You can switch the blizzard off on the menu, though long rounds still end.
Rounds and scoring
Each hit is one point. When both kids are splatted at the same moment, nobody scores and the round starts over. After every point the yard resets with a fresh fort layout and two snowballs each. If a match runs very long, it ends after a fixed number of rounds and the player in front wins; level scores at that point are a draw.
Strategy
Never stop to pack in the open. A crouching kid is a sitting target for a lob. Pack behind a wall that stands between you and your rival.
Zigzag. Straight throws lead their target. Running in one direction is the easiest way to get hit; a quick turn makes the snowball miss.
Use lobs to flush, straight throws to finish. A lob forces a hiding rival to move. The moment they step out from behind the wall, tap a straight throw.
Spend walls wisely. Breaking your rival’s best wall with lobs leaves them nowhere to pack, but every snowball you throw at a wall is one you cannot throw at them.
Like battles on one keyboard? The maze fights of Bounce Tanks and the neon air hockey of Puck Duel are built for two players on the same screen as well.
If you enjoy Snowball Siege, try Stick Brawl or Stunt Duel next.
