Solar Volley

Each player defends one side of a stone ring: a gate in their colour, with three canopic urns standing in a row in front of it. One sun orb bounces round the ring. Swing at it and it leaves the way you are facing, so every return is also a shot at somebody else's urns. Lose all three and your gate falls away into the dark. You are still in, defending an open gap, until the orb goes through it.

How a round goes

A round lasts 60 seconds and holds up to 8 players. The orb sets off from the middle at an easy pace. It speeds up on its own as the clock runs, to half as fast again by the end, and every return adds a little more, up to 19 metres a second. Bounces off stone take some of that extra pace back.

When your third urn breaks, your gate drops and everyone is told. The next time the orb crosses that gap you are out, and the orb restarts from the middle.

At 0:37 a warning counts down to the Solar Eclipse at 0:42: every orb gets half as fast again, and a second orb joins if there was only one.

If more than one of you is standing at the whistle, urns left count most, then urns you broke, then returns made. Players who went out place by how long they lasted.

The swing

• Q Volley is a swing of about a third of a second, ready again just under half a second after you press. It reaches 2.8 metres and nearly all the way round you; only directly behind is out of reach.
• The orb leaves along your facing, and your facing is the way you last moved. To aim, step toward the gap you want just before you swing.
• A swing that meets the orb in its first fifth of a second ignites it: blue flame and a quarter more speed. Later in the swing it is a plain return. Pressing when the orb is already on you always counts as on time, and a press a fifth of a second after it went past still catches it.
• Running as you swing adds up to a fifth more pace. Swinging as you change direction puts side spin on it, so it curves and kicks off the next wall at a new angle.
• Your body is not a wall. An orb that touches you without a swing staggers you for a moment and carries straight on to your urns.
• The arc on the floor in front of you is your reach. It turns red when an orb is about half a second from your gap.

Ring sizes and mutators

With 2 players the ring is a square, the two of you on opposite sides and the other two sides solid stone. With 3 it is a hexagon with every other side stone. From 4 to 8 everyone has a side, square up to octagon. The ring grows so the gap you defend stays about 6.4 metres wide at every size.

Some rounds roll a mutator. Solar Flare adds a second, slightly slower orb from the whistle. Curved Sun makes side spin half as strong again. Shrinking Shields takes 10% off your reach with every return, down to 45%, and your arc shrinks to match.

Playing it well

• Wait for it: a late swing ignites, an early one does not.
• Hold the spot you start on. If the orb is about to break one of your urns and you are within about 3.5 metres of it, a swing in the last quarter-second still saves it, and from your starting spot all three urns are in range.
• Aim at gaps, not people. The orb only breaks urns, and a broken urn counts for whoever touched the orb last.
• Read the bar under each name: it is that player's urns left. A player with no gate is one goal from going out.
• With your gate down, stand in the middle of the gap. Your reach either side nearly covers its whole width.
• Bank shots arrive slower than direct ones, because each bounce off stone takes some pace off.

After you go out

Your ghost's Q bends the orb about 20 degrees as it passes within 3.5 metres of you, once every 8 seconds. It cannot score on its own, but it can turn a save into a goal.