🏒 Air Hockey

How to play

Air Hockey is pure arcade speed distilled into a table: a slick puck glides on a cushion of air, and the first player to score 7 goals wins the match. You control the blue mallet on the bottom half of the table, and the red CPU defends the top half. Your mallet follows your mouse pointer or fingertip exactly — flick it hard into the puck to fire a shot, or nudge it gently to reposition. The puck obeys real physics: it keeps its momentum, loses speed gradually through friction, and rebounds off the side rails and both goals' edges at proper bounce angles. Goals sit at the top and bottom edges; slip the puck past the CPU mallet into the top slot to score for yourself, and scramble back to guard your own goal when the puck comes at you. Before kickoff, pick a difficulty: Easy gives you a relaxed CPU that reacts late, Medium defends sensibly and counter-attacks, and Hard is a near-perfect shot-blocker that punishes slow reactions. Every goal pauses the action for a beat and the puck drops back to centre for a fresh face-off.

Controls

• Mouse: move the pointer anywhere on your half of the table — your mallet tracks it. Quick flicks strike the puck harder; slower moves give you finer control.
• Touch: drag your finger on the canvas. Your mallet mirrors your fingertip, so you can play a full match one-handed on a phone.
• New Game restarts the match instantly with the difficulty currently selected. The difficulty menu on the start overlay changes the CPU's speed before every match.

Tips & strategy

• Strike, don't push. A fast flick of your mallet transfers real momentum — gentle shoves rarely beat the CPU, especially on Medium and Hard.
• Guard the centre of your goal. The CPU scores most often through the middle, so keep your mallet between the puck and your goal mouth at all times.
• Use the rails. Banking shots off the side walls at sharp angles catches the CPU out of position — angled ricochets are the highest-percentage shots in the game.
• Steal momentum on defence. Intercept a moving puck with the side of your mallet to redirect it back up-table without losing its speed — defence becomes attack in one touch.

Scoring

Each goal is worth 1 point and the HUD shows your score against the CPU's, plus the 7-goal target. There are no ties — the match ends the moment a side reaches 7, and the end overlay declares you the winner or loser. Beating the CPU 7–0 on Hard is the ultimate bragging-right run.