Air Hockey

Air Hockey puts a real arcade table in the browser. The puck rides on a cushion of air, so it barely slows down between hits, and the speed of your striker at the moment of contact is what goes into the shot: nudge it and the puck drifts, flick through it and the puck slams off the far rail. The walls give a clean bounce, the goal mouths have rounded lips that can spit a near-miss straight back into play, and neither striker can cross the centre line, so the whole game is about angles and timing rather than reach.

Play it face to face on one device. Stand a phone on the table between you and the playfield turns upright: player one drags a striker on the bottom half, player two on the top half, and the top scoreboard flips round so it reads the right way up from the other side. Two fingers are tracked separately, so both players can move at once. On a laptop the table lies flat instead, player one on the left with the mouse or W A S D and player two on the right with the arrow keys.

On your own, pick Easy, Normal or Sharp. Easy chases the puck and is late to the rebound, Normal reads one bounce ahead, and Sharp works out where the puck will cross its goal line, parks on the spot and waits for it. Matches are first to five, seven or eleven, the conceding player gets the face-off, and there is a three-two-one on the clock before each one. Choose between three tables while you are at it: a neon arcade slab with under-lit edges, a classic wood-and-cream table, or a sheet of ice with red and blue markings. Press P to pause, M to mute, R for a rematch.