Air Puck

Controls

Your mallet follows your finger or the mouse around the bottom half of the table. On a touch screen it sits just above your fingertip so you can see it. Keys: arrows or WASD move the mallet. P or Esc pauses.

How to play Air Puck

You defend the goal at the bottom of the table and attack the one at the top. Your mallet stays in your own half and follows your finger or the mouse. Hit the puck while the mallet is moving: the faster the swing, the harder the shot. The puck bounces off the side walls, so a bank shot can get around a rival who is guarding the middle.

The first player to score 7 goals wins the match. When a fast shot is about to be a close call at either goal, the game slows down for a moment so you can see it skim the post or get saved.

The rival ladder

There are 15 rivals, and beating one opens the next. The first nine each play their own way. Some sit back and block, some rush forward to attack, and some aim for tricky bank shots, while later ones move faster and miss less. The last six form the Neon Circuit, where the table changes: bumpers on the center line, an opponent with a huge mallet, an ice rink where the puck barely slows down, a ghost mallet that fades out when it is away from the puck, a bumper that circles the center, and a final rival who brings the bumpers together.

Each win earns stars by how few goals you let in. Hold the rival to two or fewer for three stars, or four or fewer for two.

Tips and tricks

• Stay between the puck and your goal when you are not attacking. A mallet sitting in front of the goal stops most straight shots.
• Swing through the puck instead of pushing it. A fast hit is much harder to return.
• Against a defensive rival, aim at a side wall and let the bounce do the work.
• If you lose a match you can watch a short ad to start a comeback: you get two goals and the rival drops back to 5. Skip it and you get nothing, but the button stays so you can try again.