Tug Team

Tug Team is a village fete tug of war for two people sharing one screen. Three chunky red foxes brace on the left, three blue bears dig in on the right, and a rope with a striped flag knotted at its middle runs between them. Under each crew a needle sweeps back and forth across a wooden meter. Press when the needle is on the green and your team heaves and the flag jumps your way; press on the gold sliver in the middle of the green and you get a proper HEAVE that shifts the rope a tenth of the pitch. Press anywhere else and your front fox skids forward with a puff of grass and hands ground back to the other side. There is a recovery beat after every pull, so hammering the button just keeps you locked out while the other crew reels you in. Timing beats mashing, every round.

Rounds are quick and they always finish. Nine seconds in, the marshals start walking the winning lines inwards, so a stalemate slowly turns into a lead that is good enough, and the sweet spot narrows as arms tire. Power-ups drift down onto the rope under little parachutes and are collected by whichever side drags the flag onto them: grease leaves the other crew scrabbling with a much smaller sweet spot, an anchor is driven into the turf behind your rear puller so you cannot be shifted for three seconds, and a splat of mud under the opposition's boots takes the strength out of their next few pulls. Everything lands with a grunt, a rope creak and a roar from the crowd on the banks.

Play two players on one screen — A or the left arrow for the foxes, L or the right arrow for the bears — or take on the computer on your own at Rookie, Regular or Ox. Ox finds the sweet spot nearly every time, so you will need a clean rhythm and a well-timed can of grease to beat it. On a phone the whole pitch turns a quarter so the handset can lie flat on the table between you, each player taps their own end, and the score pill at the far end is flipped to read the right way up. Match tallies are kept in the browser, so the foxes and the bears can settle a score over an afternoon.