Live Round

Mission briefing

ATTENTION, COMMANDER. Eight cities surround the arena. The Core is firing meteors in every direction. Your job is simple: make sure they hit somebody else. LIVE ROUND is an eight-player arcade game about deflecting incoming meteors away from your city and into your opponents. Fire blasts to change their course, move your deflector into position, and try to survive as the arena gets increasingly chaotic. Between rounds, choose upgrades that change how you play. If your city gets wiped out, you’re not finished: You can stick around and sabotage the players still alive. Play online, against bots, or in private rooms across five different game modes, including Defence, Paddle, Vault, Invaders and Belt. Protect your city. Send the meteors elsewhere. Be the last player standing. LIVE ROUND — MUTUALLY ASSURED DEFLECTION

Field manual

In Game modes that include Paddles simply move your mouse to move the paddle, in modes that allow it you can also click to shoot missiles. (Watch your ammo!) When eliminated, simply select a sabotage and then where to deploy it with the mouse.

Launch orders: press Launch mission above and the game loads on this page itself — nothing downloads and no form stands between you and the first move. It is designed for a landscape (wide) screen and takes its orders from mouse, keyboard or touch, depending on the mission. It is built wide, for a landscape screen — rotate a phone sideways, or give it a tablet or monitor to stretch out on. If it offers a fullscreen control, use it — a fight this size deserves the whole screen.

Field notes for shooting operations

• Short bursts beat long ones. Recoil, spread and plain panic all grow the longer you hold the trigger; three controlled shots land where one long spray writes poetry on the wall behind your target.
• Reload behind something. The reload animation is the most dangerous second in any shooter — spend it behind cover, mid-jump, or not at all if the magazine still has work in it.
• Sound is intelligence. Footsteps, reload clicks and distant fire tell you where the fight is before the screen does; play with the volume up and treat every noise as a map marker.

Live Round — questions from the ranks

What does it cost to play Live Round?

Nothing at all. The mission is free from the first order to the last — no sign-up, no download, no paid tier guarding the good levels. The advertising around this page is what keeps the board free.

What sort of mission is Live Round?

Live Round is filed in our Shooting theatre. Like every operation on this board, it is a browser game — read the briefing above for the publisher's own account of what you are deploying into.

Can I run Live Round on a phone or tablet?

Yes. It plays in the browser on phones and tablets exactly as it does on a computer. It is built wide, for a landscape screen — rotate a phone sideways, or give it a tablet or monitor to stretch out on.

Do I have to install anything before playing?

No installation of any kind. Live Round is an HTML5 game: press the launch button and it loads on this page, and closing the tab leaves nothing behind.

After-action

Mission complete, or still pinned down? The full Shooting theatre is one click away — Trigger discipline optional, aim compulsory. Two hundred and thirty-one shooting operations, from arcade galleries to full online firefights, posted in roster order — the strongest files first.