Snowball Fight

Snowball Fight is a cosy winter throwing game. You are a fox kit in a bobble hat, crouched behind a wall of snow bricks on one side of the village square. On the other side a team of mischievous snowmen pops up behind forts, sledges and snowbanks and throws back. Pull back to aim, watch the faint arc, and let go: snowballs fly with real gravity and a touch of wind that the little flag beside your wall gives away. A good hit lands with a big white splat, the first one knocks a hat clean off, and the next topples the snowman into a heap with his carrot sticking out. Keep holding before you let go and the fox packs a big snowball that splashes anyone standing next to the impact. When something comes your way, duck: your wall takes the hits and crumbles a chunk at a time, and it gets patched between rounds.

The forty rounds are quick, most under a minute, and run across four places. In the village square you learn the ropes. On the frozen lake penguins and snowmen slide back and forth on the ice, so you throw where they are going. In the pine forest a snowball into a snowy tree dumps its load on whoever hides underneath, and on the mountain top the wind keeps changing. Every tenth round is a boss: a giant snowman who only feels hits to his top hat, a yeti who catches snowballs unless you fake him out with a big one, a snow-cannon fort, and a summit fort with the yeti on top. Balloon presents drift across the sky with a triple snowball, an ice ball that freezes snowmen for the rest of the round, or hot cocoa that rebuilds your wall. Each round awards up to three stars for clearing it, for accuracy and for beating the par time, and a lost round simply restarts.

When the forty rounds are done there is the Endless blizzard: wave after wave across all four places, a wall that only partly mends between waves and a high score to chase. The Daily blizzard gives everyone the same storm for the day, with its own best score. Play with a mouse, the keyboard or a touch screen; everything is drawn in code, works on a phone held upright and remembers your stars in the browser.