Missile Defense is an arcade game where rockets rain down on six cities and you guard them from the ground. You don’t shoot straight at targets. You choose a point in the sky, a shot climbs to it, and it bursts into a glowing ball that wrecks anything drifting through. You can play Missile Defense unblocked with a mouse or a touchscreen, and learning to aim where a rocket is going, not where it is, is the whole game.
How to Play Missile Defense
Press PLAY on the title screen. Your six cities sit along the ground with three cannons spread between them, one on each side and one in the middle. Click or tap anywhere in the sky and a shot launches toward that spot, then explodes. Any rocket that touches the blast is destroyed.
Each blast swells for a moment, holds briefly, then shrinks away. It still counts as a hit while it shrinks, so a rocket that drifts into the fading edge is gone too. Bombers and satellites are a bit easier to catch, since the blast reaches a little farther for them.
Each cannon holds 10 shots per wave. The game fires from whichever loaded cannon is closest to your click, measured side to side. When a cannon runs dry, the next nearest one takes over, so clicking far to the left after the left cannon is empty makes the center one fire instead.
Esc pauses the game, and the pause menu lets you restart. R also restarts a run in progress. The HELP screen sums up the rules in two lines.
Your Cities and Cannons
Rockets don’t only go after cities. About four out of five aim at a city, and the rest aim at one of your cannons. A cannon that gets hit stays broken for the rest of the game, so you’ll have fewer shots in later waves.
At the start of each new wave, every cannon still standing reloads to 10 shots. The middle cannon is the most valuable: its shots travel at a speed of 22, compared with 14 for the outer two, so it reaches high targets much sooner.
How the Waves Build Up
Wave 1 sends 10 rockets. Each wave after that adds 3 more, and the rockets fall a little faster every time. New threats join in as you go:
- Wave 2: bombers and satellites start crossing the sky and dropping rockets. Each one drops one rocket at first, two from wave 5, and three from wave 10.
- Wave 3: some rockets split into several partway down. About one in four can split, rising to about one in three from wave 7.
- Wave 5: smart bombs appear. They swerve to dodge your blasts. There is one in wave 5, then one more each wave up to five.
You lose when the last city falls. Bonus cities can stretch a good run a long way.
Scoring and Bonuses
Each kill is worth base points times the wave multiplier:
- Rocket: 25 points.
- Bomber or satellite: 100 points.
- Smart bomb: 125 points.
When a wave ends, a tally screen adds 5 points for every unused shot and 100 for every surviving city, also times the multiplier. Every 10,000 points gives you a bonus city. Your best score is saved in the browser, and the game over screen shows the wave you reached.
Missile Defense Tips for Later Waves
- Aim below the rocket. Your shot needs time to climb, so target the spot the rocket will reach.
- Catch clusters. One well-placed burst can take out several rockets heading the same way.
- Pop splitters early. A rocket that hasn’t split yet takes one shot. After it splits, you need several.
- Guard the center cannon. It is the fastest, and losing it makes high shots much harder.
- Shoot the bombers. At 100 points each, they’re worth four rockets, and each one you hit drops nothing more.
- Skip ruined cities. A rocket falling on rubble does no more damage, so save the shot.
- Don’t spray. Every leftover shot turns into bonus points at the end of the wave.
The most common beginner mistake is clicking right on top of a rocket. By the time the blast opens, the rocket has moved past it.
Playing at School
Any laptop, Chromebook or tablet works, since the only control is pointing at the sky. Sounds are made in code and play during the game, so turn the volume down or use headphones in a quiet room. The OPTIONS menu has more settings if you want to adjust things.
More Arcade Games Like This
If you enjoy shooting at things from the ground, see the arcade games or try:
- Andromeda Invaders fires for you, so the job is steering and dodging while you break up an alien fleet.
- Astroblast has you flying around open space, breaking up rocks instead of guarding a city.
