Bumper Royale

Bumper Royale is a multiplayer-style knockout show you play against bot rivals in your browser. Twenty-four bright plastic beans line up behind the start gate, and three rounds later there is one left. Round one is the dash: a long floating obstacle course of spinning bars, sliding pistons, swinging hammers, bouncy drums and holes that go all the way down to the clouds. The first sixteen through the gate stay in the show and the last eight go home, so it is not enough to survive — you have to be quick about it.

Round two moves everyone onto a honeycomb floor. Every hex tile you stand on starts to wobble the moment you touch it, and a few seconds later it lets go and drops into the sky with anyone still on it. Twelve have to be left standing, and as the floor thins out the outer ring starts falling on its own, so the last minute is a scramble for the few plates nobody has spoiled yet. Round three is the bumper platform: a shrinking disc with the last twelve on it, a shoulder charge that sends a rival flying, and a sweeper bar that swings in when the crowd stops committing. Last one on the disc takes the crown.

Move with WASD or the arrows, hop and dive with Space, and hold Shift to wind up a shoulder charge — on a phone it is a joystick and two buttons. Every rival has a name above its head and a personality behind it: cautious ones farm the safe tiles, reckless ones dive at everything, bullies come looking for you. The feed calls out every knockout and every qualifier, a live leaderboard tracks the high score for the show, and the board across shows counts the crowns you have collected. Nothing here is a real person: the whole arena runs in your browser, so a show starts the moment you press the button.