How to Play Barrage
Barrage is a turn-based artillery duel between you and an AI opponent across a procedurally generated hillside. Each round, two tanks face off on a landscape of rolling terrain — your green tank on the left, the AI's red tank on the right. The goal is simple: reduce the enemy tank's HP to zero before it does the same to you. A best-of-three match structure means you need to win two rounds to claim the duel.
On your turn, adjust your cannon's angle using the left and right arrow keys on desktop, or the angle buttons on mobile. Then hold the Spacebar (or tap-hold the Fire button on mobile) to charge your power — watch the orange power bar fill up. Release to fire. Your shell will arc through the air, curving with the wind shown in the HUD at the top. Land within 28 pixels of the enemy tank to deal damage. Direct hits deal the most damage; near-misses still score a proximity bonus.
Wind is the key wild card in Barrage. Each round starts with a random wind value between −5 and +5 pixels per frame of acceleration, shown with a directional arrow in the HUD. A headwind pushes your shell short; a tailwind carries it long. Skilled players learn to offset their angle into the wind, leading their shot so the arc delivers it where the target actually is.
Terrain is destructible. Every shell that hits the ground carves a crater into the landscape, permanently changing the topology. A deep crater between you and the enemy can block low-angle shots; and cratering the ground under a tank leaves it perched on a ledge — though tanks hold their position all round. These terrain changes persist across turns within a round, so both players must continuously re-assess the landscape as it evolves.
Difficulty Modes
Choose your opponent's difficulty before the first round. Easy mode gives the AI a large angle jitter (±12 degrees), so it misses frequently and gives you comfortable breathing room to practice aim and wind compensation. Medium reduces that jitter to ±5 degrees — the AI now hits reliably from mid-range and will pressure you to play accurately. Hard drops the jitter to just ±1 degree, making the AI near-optimal; it adjusts after each miss and is a serious test of your artillery instincts.
Scoring
Win the match and you bank a flat 250 points; lose and you score nothing. The leaderboard is a record of who has taken the duel, not of how comfortably — so pick the difficulty you can actually close out. Scores are submitted to the leaderboard at match end — beat the top score by playing aggressively and finishing rounds quickly.
Strategy Tips for Barrage
- Lead into the wind. If the wind is blowing right (positive), aim a few degrees further left than your instinct suggests. The arc will drift rightward mid-flight and land on target.
- Start with medium power. The enemy sits 580 pixels away and even 100% power only just reaches, so treat a near-full bar as your baseline and spend your adjustments on angle instead.
- Watch the AI's first shot. The AI aims as if there were no wind at all, so the gap between where it aimed and where its shell lands is a free measurement of how far this round’s wind will push your own shot.
- Use craters as cover. You cannot move your tank, but a short shot that craters the ridge between the two of you changes which angles can reach you — and the AI never re-plans around it.
- Play Hard to improve. The Hard AI is nearly optimal — getting hit by it teaches you exactly what good play looks like. Mirror its angle choices and you'll close the gap quickly.
Frequently Asked Questions
How does wind work in Barrage?
Wind applies a small horizontal acceleration to your shell every physics frame. Positive wind pushes right; negative wind pushes left. The effect compounds over the arc — the longer your shell is in flight, the more wind deflects it. The HUD shows the wind value and direction before each shot. Adjust your aim angle into the wind to compensate: aim left for rightward wind, aim right for leftward wind.
What does the power bar control in Barrage?
The power bar sets the initial speed of your shell. At 10% power the shell barely clears your own tank; at 100% it just reaches across the 580-pixel gap to the enemy. The tanks are far enough apart that you will be firing near full power most of the time — 90–100% is the working band. The bar fills while you hold Space (or hold the Fire button on mobile) and fires the moment you release — practice holding for a consistent duration to develop muscle memory for your favourite power level.
Does terrain destruction persist between rounds?
No — each new round regenerates a fresh terrain. Craters and terrain changes from the previous round do not carry over. Within a single round, however, every shell that hits the ground permanently carves a crater that both players must navigate for the rest of that round.
How does the AI aim in Barrage?
The AI rolls a random power between 65 and 90, then binary-searches its launch angle — 48 bisection steps between 5° and 85° — for the elevation that would land that shell on your tank, and finally adds a random angle error drawn evenly across the difficulty's jitter band. Easy adds ±12° of random jitter; Medium ±5°; Hard only ±1°. The AI re-solves from scratch every turn and keeps no memory of its last shot, so a miss teaches it nothing — its accuracy comes entirely from the jitter band. It also ignores wind completely.
Is there a daily challenge in Barrage?
Yes — Barrage seeds today's terrain and wind sequence from the current calendar date, so all players on a given day face the same landscape and wind conditions. Your score on the daily challenge terrain is eligible for the leaderboard just like a standard match. The seed resets at midnight UTC.
Can I play Barrage on mobile?
Yes. On mobile, tap the angle left/right buttons to aim your cannon, then tap-hold the FIRE button to charge power and release to shoot. The canvas scales to fill your screen, and all controls are touch-optimised. No install or app download needed — Barrage runs in any modern mobile browser.
