Bounce Defense
A light ball keeps flying and a wave of shapes keeps walking down at your line. Tap anywhere to drop a pin: the ball bounces off it and gains one ring of charge, and any pin can only ever give the same ball two rings. Every enemy shows how many rings it has left, so when your charge matches its rings exactly you smash it for score times that number and one pin comes straight back. Overkill still kills but pays once, and a bare one-ring ball passes straight through.
Controls
- Touch — tap anywhere inside the arena
- Drops one pin as soon as your finger lands and spends one slot. Near a wall or your line, the pin moves inward to the placement edge; the guided opening can also move it below the ball. Sliding or lifting your finger does not move, cancel or add a pin
- Mouse — left click anywhere in the arena
- Places one pin when you press the left button. Holding or dragging does not add pins. Right and middle clicks do not place pins or spend slots
- Touch — two fingers pressing at once
- Each finger drops its own pin and each one costs a slot. If only one slot is left, the press that arrived first gets the pin and the other gets the refusal cue instead of being silently dropped
- Any tap while all three slots are empty
- No pin appears. A red cross marks your press, the empty slots flash, and a low tone plays if sound is on. With Standard pins in Standard mode, one slot returns every 2 seconds; other pins and Sprint change that timing
- Keyboard — Escape
- Pauses when the arena has keyboard focus; Escape closes the pause panel to resume. Use Tab to move between menu controls and Enter to activate a focused button. Placing pins requires touch, a mouse or a trackpad
- The pause button in the HUD bar
- Pauses the run and opens sound, vibration and reduce-motion settings. Choose Resume to continue. Score, wave, charge and pin slots are readouts, not buttons
How to play
ObjectiveKeep one light ball in the air and smash every enemy that walks down toward the five-segment line at the bottom of the screen. Enemies show how many rings they have left, your ball shows how much charge it carries, and matching the two numbers exactly is what pays — there is no finish line, only a deeper wave and a bigger score.
Getting started
- Press Play on the title screen to start immediately, or open Loadout first to choose Standard, Sprint or the Daily arena, pick your pin type and pick a paint colour.
- On your first guided run, tap the pulsing ring below the ball. Slow motion gives you time to see the bounce against the opening band of 2-ring Motes.
- Tap below the falling ball. Your pin lands there, the ball bounces off it and flies back up, and the charge ring around the ball grows from 1 to 2.
- Read the two numbers before the ball arrives: the charge figure in the HUD, and the ring count on each enemy — Mote 2, Shell 3, Drifter 4, Warden 5, Bastion 6.
- Add another pin when one has supplied two rings. Starting at charge 1, reaching 5 needs at least two pins and reaching 6 needs at least three; Standard and Long pins add one ring per charging bounce, while a lit Burst pin adds two.
- Send the ball into an enemy whose remaining rings match your charge exactly, with both at 2 or more. That is an exact hit: it scores the enemy's base value times that number and hands one pin straight back.
- Keep the ball off the floor between kills. If it crosses your line you lose a segment and it respawns 0.9 seconds later at charge 1; an enemy that walks into the line costs a segment too.
- When all five segments are gone, review your score and exact-hit rate. Press Play again on the result screen to start a fresh run.
Tips
- Put a pin below a falling ball to send it upward. Avoid placing one directly above a rising ball: a head-on bounce sends it back toward your line. Place it to the side when you want to steer instead.
- Walls give you free travel but zero charge. Only your pins add rings, so waiting for the ball to ricochet its way stronger off the sides just hands the wave several free seconds of walking.
- Build a two-pin lane to reach charge 5 from 1: Standard or Long pins need four charging bounces across at least two pins. Reaching 6 needs five charging bounces across at least three pins. Place the next pin along the return path before the ball passes it.
- Save a 6-ring ball for a matching target when you can do so safely. In Standard mode, an exact hit on a full Bastion pays 504, while overkilling a Mote pays 12. A target's remaining rings determine the exact-hit multiplier.
- Use exact hits to refill empty slots. Each one returns a pin immediately, so you can prepare a catch without waiting for the refill timer. Keep watching the ball's return path after the kill.
- Remember that a 1-ring ball does not bounce off enemies — it passes straight through, chipping one ring on the way. Have a pin in the bank before you chip something, because the ball will carry on and come down with nothing to catch it.
- After a 4-ring hit chips a Bastion down to 2, aim a 2-ring ball at it for an exact hit. In Standard mode that follow-up earns 168 points and refunds a pin. Read its remaining rings rather than trying to rebuild to 6.
- Clear the stragglers before you start on the fresh arrivals. The 20-times-wave-number bonus only pays when every enemy of that particular wave is gone, and a new wave lands 1.5 seconds after a clear or 10 seconds after the last one regardless.
- Watch a Drifter's sideways movement before placing the next pin. Send the ball toward where it will arrive, and check how close other enemies are to your line before spending pins on the moving target.
- Give the Burst pin room to light up. Its core fills in 0.35 seconds and it vanishes after one bounce, so a pin dropped at the ball's feet catches it dark for one ring, while the same pin placed further down its path catches it lit for two.
FAQ
How do I start playing Bounce Defense?
Press Play on the title screen, then tap below the falling ball to place a pin and bounce it upward. On your first guided run, slow motion and a pulsing ring help you place the opening pins. Match the ball's charge to an enemy's remaining rings for an exact hit. Open How to play from the title screen or pause panel to review the rules.
What do the rings on the ball and the enemies mean?
The ball's rings show its charge, and an enemy's rings show how much damage it can still take. Charge ranges from 1 to 6. Enemies start at 2 rings for a Mote, 3 for a Shell, 4 for a Drifter, 5 for a Warden and 6 for a Bastion. An exact match of two rings or more earns a score multiplier and returns one pin; one ring against one ring counts as an ordinary kill. Your current charge also appears above the arena.
How does scoring work in Bounce Defense?
Every enemy has a base value: Mote 12, Shell 24, Drifter 40, Warden 60, Bastion 84. If your charge exactly matches the rings that enemy has left and both are at least 2, you get an exact hit worth the base value multiplied by that number — 504 for a full Bastion — and one pin comes back immediately. Hit with more rings than it has left and it still dies, but pays its base value once. Hit with fewer and it survives with that many rings chipped off, you score nothing and your charge drops back to 1. Clearing every enemy of one wave adds 20 times that wave number.
How do I get a higher score in Bounce Defense?
Aim for enemies whose remaining rings match your charge: an exact hit of two rings or more multiplies the base score by that ring count and refunds a pin. A full 6-ring Bastion pays 504 in Standard mode, compared with 84 for an overkill. Prepare pins along the ball's return path, and finish leftover enemies to collect wave-clear bonuses. Sprint applies a 1.3 score multiplier, but its faster ball and enemies require quicker placement.
Why did my run end?
Your line at the bottom has five segments and you lose one each time an enemy walks into it or the ball drops past it. At zero segments the run is over. Standing still is not a safe option, because a ball with nothing to bounce off falls through the line again and again — the guided first wave gives you extra time to react, but a dropped ball still costs a segment there too. The result screen tells you which of the two took your last segment and which single mistake cost you the most points.
Can I play Bounce Defense on a phone?
Yes. Use a phone browser and tap inside the arena to place pins. Portrait is the main layout; in phone landscape, the arena sits on the left and the game readouts sit on the right. The rules stay the same. On a computer, the game keeps its phone-shaped layout and accepts left clicks for placing pins.
Do I need to download anything or create an account?
No download or account is needed: you play Bounce Defense in your browser. Open the game page and press Play. Keep an internet connection available when opening or reloading the page so the game and its images can load.
Is my progress saved, and can I continue on another device?
Records, unlocks, your loadout and settings are saved in this browser on this device; they do not sync to another browser or device. An unfinished run is not saved for resuming after a reload. If browser storage is unavailable, a notice explains that records cannot be saved, but you can still play. Clearing this site's browser data also removes its saved progress.
How do I unlock the Long pin and the Burst pin?
Both come from total kills counted across every run, not from high scores, so a thirty-second run still moves you forward. The Long pin arrives at 150 kills and the Burst pin at 400, with paint colours at 60, 250 and 600. You carry exactly one pin type per run and choose it in Loadout: the Long pin lasts 2.6 seconds instead of 1.6 but is smaller and slower to return, and the Burst pin gives one ring while its core is dark, two once it lights up after 0.35 seconds, and then disappears after that single bounce.
What is the Daily arena?
The Daily arena uses the date shown in its panel to set the challenge. Replay that date to try to improve your result; your pin choice and your actions still affect the run. The panel shows today's scores and your daily bests saved in this browser. There is no online leaderboard.
Does the game ever end, or do the waves keep coming?
There is no final level or victory screen: the run ends when your line loses all five segments. Later waves introduce tougher enemies, and wave 16 begins a final surge of Bastions arriving at shorter intervals. Try to beat your deepest wave or best score; the length of a run depends on how long you survive.
Why is there no sound in Bounce Defense?
Sound may be muted in the game or on your device, or waiting for your first interaction. Press Play, open the pause panel and turn Sound on, then check your device volume and mute setting. Resume and place a pin to check the sound. If it is still silent, reload the page and press Play again.
About the game
Free browser game, no download. One tap drops a pin, the ball bounces off it and charges up, and matching your charge to an enemy's rings pays the most. Three pin types, a daily arena, and a run that lasts about three minutes.