Solar Standoff

Solar Standoff is a shooting game in which you never see your target. When the lights go down over the lava pit you have five seconds to guess where your rivals went and to be somewhere they will not guess. Good guessing beats good aim, and standing still loses to both.

One volley, eight seconds

Every volley runs the same three beats until one player is left.

• Hide, 5 seconds. The court goes dark. You see yourself and your sight, a line from your rifle that nobody else sees. Walk, dash and aim. The last 3 seconds count down, and your sight turns red-hot for the final two.
• Fire, 1.5 seconds. The court lights up, everyone is held in place, and every orb flies at once. Who each one burns is settled the instant it leaves: the first body within about half a metre of its line. The burned are thrown into the lava.
• Drop, 1.5 seconds. Still lit. The outer ring of floor falls into the lava, with anyone standing on it. If that would be everyone left, the one nearest the floor catches the edge.

The countdown before the first hide is lit, so everyone sees where everyone starts.

The floor runs out

The court is about 9 m from middle to edge at 2 players, 12 m at 8 and 15 m at 16, with everyone starting in a ring facing the middle. Seven drops take the floor in to a small core, and four more shave the core to a last disc 2 to 3 m across, where an orb aimed at the middle can hardly miss. That disc is all that is left from about a minute and a half in. Until then, a red line marks the floor that will survive the next drop.

Aim, dash, remember

The mouse aims separately from where you walk (on a phone, the right thumb drags the aim), so you can run one way and point another. Q is the Solar Dash: about 3 m in a quarter of a second, the way you are walking, not the way you aim. It comes back after 3.5 s, so a hide holds one, sometimes two.

When the lights go down, your screen leaves a ring in each rival's colour where you last saw them, with an arrow the way they were moving. When your orb lands, your badge says whom you hit or that you missed.

Burned, but not finished

Out of the heat, you float over the court as a ghost. Everyone can see the ghosts, but ghosts are as blind as anyone. Once a volley, during the hide, Q drops a Sun Flare under you that lights a pool about 3 m across for just over a second, and everyone sees whoever is standing in it.

How to stay standing

• Move the moment the lights go down. Every guess at you starts from where the last reveal left you, and five seconds at a walk covers more than half the court.
• Be inside the red line by zero, not by the drop. You are held still through the fire, and the ring goes the instant the drop begins.
• Aim at where people have to go. As the floor shrinks, everyone must end the hide inside the red line, so a last-seen ring outside it is worth less than the ground just inside.
• Be second in a line, never first. The front body takes the orb and shields whoever is behind it.
• Aim at the centre of your guess. If the last players all hit each other, the shot that passed closest to its target's centre survives.
• Watch the flares. A rival lit mid-hide is a fresh sighting, so turn your sight on them. If one lights you up, dash off that spot before zero.

Three heats

Each heat pays a point for every player who goes out before you, and everyone burned in the same volley ties. The biggest total after three heats wins, and a tie goes to whoever did better in the last heat. At 2 players every heat is a straight duel, settled by a hit, a drop or the truer shot.