Everyone gets one wall of the same polygon. Eight players, eight sides; the ball comes at all of you at once, and the only thing you control is the paddle on your own edge.
Miss it twice and your wall shatters. The arena immediately closes the gap and comes back as a smaller shape — an octagon becomes a heptagon becomes a pentagon — so the board is always exactly as big as the people left alive. When two of you remain it has become a rectangle with two paddles and two dead walls, which is to say it has become the oldest video game there is. Everything before that is the road down to the duel.
It does not politely wait for you. The ball speeds up on every return, more balls arrive the longer you all survive, and past a point the walls themselves start closing in. Rounds end.
Knocked out early? You are not a spectator. The dead run the hazards: aim anywhere inside the arena and drop a bumper, a gravity well that bends the ball off course, or a spinning bar that throws it. Whoever put you out is still in there, and you can make their life considerably worse.
Plays in a browser on a phone or a laptop, up to eight people on one link, bots fill any empty walls.
How to play SIDE OUT
GOAL
Defend your wall. You have two lives. Lose both and your side shatters, the polygon closes the gap, and play continues without you. The last player with a wall standing wins.
CONTROLS
Desktop — move the mouse to slide your paddle, or use the arrow keys (A / D also work).
Phone — drag anywhere on the screen; the paddle follows your finger along your own wall.
Your wall is always drawn at the bottom of your screen with a caret under it and your name beside it, however the arena is turned for everyone else.
M mutes, and the speaker button in the corner works on every screen.
THE BALL
It gains speed with every paddle it touches, and the trail takes the colour of whoever hit it last — so you can see whose rally it is. Hitting the ball off-centre puts spin on it.
WHEN IT GETS DANGEROUS
About a minute in, a second ball joins, then a third, and they keep coming. Later still the whole arena starts to shrink. Nobody survives forever, which is the point.
WHEN YOU ARE OUT — SABOTAGE
Dead players get the hazards. Point anywhere inside the arena and drop one:
PEG — a bumper that kicks the ball off at a hard angle.
WELL — bends every ball that passes near it.
SPIN — a rotating bar that throws the ball across the board.
There is a cooldown between drops; the ring at your crosshair counts it down. You cannot place one inside a living player's reach, and the refused marker tells you why.
LOBBY
Press READY. If you are alone the game holds the door a few seconds for anyone else opening your link. Anyone arriving during the countdown is dealt in; anyone later watches the round out and plays the next one.
This is the public world for SIDE OUT: one permanent room anyone on the internet can join. Open the page and you're in, live, with whoever's online. Free in your browser; no download, no sign-up.
