Free air hockey vs the computer (bot)

How to start

1. Open bigboard.games on every device and tap Start a table on one of them.
2. The others join by themselves on the same Wi-Fi; elsewhere, scan the QR code or type the four-letter code.
3. Lay the devices edge to edge, screens up, as the drawing shows, and pick the game.

How the bot plays

There is one bot level. It strikes a slow puck on its own side at a corner of your goal, meets a puck heading its way between it and its goal, and otherwise guards a spot just out from its goal, leaning toward the puck.

It is beatable on purpose: it reads the puck's heading a few degrees off, its guard spot wanders and over-leans, it looks again only every 170 to 300 milliseconds, and its hand is slower than yours. A hard shot across into the far corner is the way past it.

You against the bot

On your own, start a table on one phone or tablet and add a bot. The rink runs along your screen, your goal at your end, the bot's at the far end, and this device runs it. The usual settings apply: first to 5, 7 or 11, comeback goals, all five arenas.

When the match ends, the card faces you alone and says whether you won. Rematch is one tap, so a few quick games against it make good practice before your friends arrive. When one sits down, they take the bot's end: 2 player air hockey on one screen.

Bots at a table of friends

With friends, Add a bot seats the bot at the edge of the rink, with a goal of its own on the device under its seat, which runs it. The puck comes to its goal like to anyone's, and it shoots back across the whole rink.

Bots count as players, so three friends and a bot can play air hockey 2v2 or free-for-all, and one friend with two bots makes a free-for-all of three. If the device under a bot's seat leaves mid-match, the bot is out with it.

With bots: questions and answers