CrateballCrateball

How it plays

Two teams of three, one ball, two goals. You move with WASD or the arrow keys, kick with Space and use items with E. Matches last a few minutes. Every so often a crate lands somewhere on the pitch, and whoever runs over it first gets what's inside.

What's in the crates

About half of the items help you and half of them don't, so grabbing a crate is always a risk.

• Gun: three shots that aim themselves at the nearest opponent. Three hits knock a player out for a few seconds.
• Bazooka: a single rocket that locks onto an opponent and follows them. One hit is enough. It's the rarest item.
• Shield: stops the next bullet, rocket, mine, freeze or dizzy spell that would have hit you.
• Speed, Power kick and Teleport for getting past defenders or shooting from distance.
• Mine: explodes when you open it and pushes everyone nearby, ball included.
• Ice: you're frozen in place for a couple of seconds.
• Dizzy: your controls are reversed for four seconds.

Arenas

After each goal the match moves to a different pitch. On ice you slide and the ball keeps rolling. In the rain, puddles slow you down. On the volcano, lava streams run across the field and sometimes erupt. On the windy pitch the ball drifts with the wind, which keeps changing direction. There's also a plain grass pitch. The host can choose which ones are used.

Positions

Each player can take a position, and each one has its own passive in its part of the pitch. The goalkeeper catches hard shots near the goal instead of letting them bounce out. Defenders can shoulder charge, which shoves an opponent and slows them down for a moment. Midfielders take the sting out of hard passes with a soft first touch and get help aiming their passes. Forwards are the fastest players up front, shoot harder, and a shot that would just miss the post curls in. You can also play with no position, and the host can turn positions off.

Playing with friends

• Create a room and send the link or the four-letter code to your friends, or join a public room.
• Empty spots are filled by bots, so two people are enough to start a match.
• The host picks the match length, the score limit, how often each item comes out of crates (anything from the standard mix to guns only) and which arenas are used.
• Late arrivals watch the match as spectators and join a team for the next one. There's a text chat in the lobby and during matches.
• The game predicts your own movement locally, so it stays responsive even with a bit of lag.