Tank Duel

About this game

Tank Duel is artillery in its oldest and best form. Two unmanned tanks sit at opposite ends of a range, and each turn you get one shell and two numbers: the angle of the barrel and how hard to throw it. Everything else is arithmetic you do by watching where the last one landed. The ground is the third player. Every shell that lands takes a bite out of the hillside and leaves a burn where it hit, so the range you are shooting over changes shape as the duel goes on. A ridge that blocked your line of fire on the first turn can be flattened by the fourth. Dig the ground out from under the enemy and it drops into the hole, and a long enough fall does damage on its own. The scorch marks are not decoration — knowing where your last three shells landed is most of how you find the range. Wind blows across the range and it is displayed, not hidden. It changes once a round rather than once a turn, so both tanks always fire into the same air and nobody wins because they drew the calm turn. A strong crosswind can move a shell most of a tank's width by the time it arrives, which is the difference between a direct hit and a near miss you have to correct for. Three kinds of shell. The standard one is unlimited and does the ranging. Heavy shells blow a far bigger crater and hurt far more, and you only get three, so spending one before you know the range is how duels are lost. Cluster shells split apart at the top of their arc into a spread of smaller charges — the answer when you know roughly where the enemy is but not exactly, and you have two. A direct hit does full damage; anything near enough to be caught in the blast takes what is left over, falling away sharply with distance. That is why bracketing works: land one long, land one short, and put the third between them. Play against the computer at three difficulties. The opponent aims by flying real shells through the real trajectory and picking the best one it finds, so it plays the same game you do — what changes with difficulty is how carefully it searches and how badly it then misaims. Even the hardest setting misses, because an opponent that solves the parabola exactly is not difficult, it is just the end of the game. Or hand the keyboard back and forth in two-player: it is turn-based, so one keyboard is all it takes.

Controls

Drag back from your tank to aim, slingshot style — the direction sets the barrel and the pull-back distance sets the power.

Keyboard

• Left and Right for angle, Up and Down for power.
• Space to fire; keys 1, 2 and 3 pick the shell.

Touch

• The buttons under the range adjust angle and power and fire.

How to play

You and your opponent take one shot each in turn, and the first tank to run out of health loses.

Finding the range

• Set the angle of your barrel and how hard to fire, then watch where the shell lands and correct: if it went long, take some power off; if it fell short, add some.
• Read the wind before you commit, because it pushes the shell sideways for its whole flight.
• A direct hit does full damage and a near miss does less the further away it is, so bracketing the target — one long, one short, then split the difference — beats guessing.

The ground is not fixed

• Every shell also destroys ground, so you can dig away the hill you are shooting over, or dig away the one your opponent is standing on and drop them into the hole.

Special shells

• Save the three Heavy shells until you have the range, and use the two Cluster shells when you know roughly where the enemy is but not exactly.

Read the full Tank Duel rules and strategy →