About Siege Shot
A catapult on one side of the field, a stronghold on the other. Drag back to aim and set the power, let go to fire. Knock every piece down before your rocks run out — and before the ballista on the walls, which fires back on a timer you can watch wind up, wrecks your catapult. A piece falls when the one under it is gone, and whatever falls is hurt by the landing, so a low shot into the base of a tower can bring down everything above it and scores far more than hitting each piece in turn. Silence the ballista early and the rest of that stronghold is yours to take slowly. Every stronghold you flatten is replaced by a taller, wider one whose ballista fires faster, and the damage to your catapult carries over.
How to play
- Press anywhere, drag back and let go. The pull sets the angle and power, and dots show the start of the flight path while you aim.
- On a keyboard, the arrow keys or WASD change the angle. Hold Space to charge the power up and back down, and release to fire.
- Knock down every piece before your rocks run out. Clear a stronghold and a bigger one drops in.
- The ballista on the walls fires on a timer you can watch. Three bolts wreck your catapult, and damage carries over between strongholds.
- The run ends when the catapult is wrecked, or when your last rock lands with pieces still standing.
Tips
- Aim for the base. A piece falls when the one under it is gone and is hurt by the landing. A piece destroyed by a fall pays 60 points, against 25 for breaking one with a rock.
- Silence the ballista first. It takes two hits, pays a 50-point bonus, and cannot fire again at that stronghold. On the first two strongholds it always stands on the rear column.
- Watch for red. The ballista's wind-up turns red for the last 1.2 seconds, and the bolt then takes 1.25 seconds to arrive. Flattening the stronghold first cancels any bolt already in the air.
- Spare rocks are points. You get one rock per hit of health plus a few spare. Each rock left when a stronghold falls is worth 30, on top of 100 times the stronghold's number.
- Fire in quick pairs. Reloading takes 0.7 seconds and several rocks can be in the air at once, so a quick second shot can finish a damaged piece before it matters.
Read the full Siege Shot guide (5 min read)
From the developer
Siege Shot is an aim-and-release game: press anywhere, drag back to set the angle and power, and let go. I built it in plain JavaScript on a 2D canvas, on a small shared runtime I wrote for my one-verb games, which handles loading, screen fitting, input, sound and saving.
What makes a shot a decision is that a stronghold is columns of stacked pieces, and a piece falls when the one under it is gone. A falling piece is hurt by its landing and hurts what it lands on, so a flat shot into the base of a column can bring down a whole tower, and each piece destroyed that way pays 60 against 25 for a direct break. A ballista on the walls fires back on a timer that turns red for its last 1.2 seconds; three bolts end the run.
A test bot that aims on a 2 degree by 2% grid clears every stronghold of levels 1 to 10 within the rocks it is given. The sprites are rendered in Blender from Toony Tiny RTS Set by Polygon Blacksmith, and each piece's damaged look is the pack's own construction stage. My first render at half size looked soft on a desktop, so I doubled it for 73 KB more.
Son Hoang, who made Siege Shot
Update history
- Added battle music: Battle Theme 1 from Andrew Sitkov Music's FREE Battle Music Pack.
- The score readout now sits in the centre of the top bar.
- First release: drag back to aim, let go to fire, and bring down strongholds before the ballista wrecks your catapult.
Questions
Does Siege Shot save my progress?
Only your best score, in this browser's local storage. Every run starts again at the first stronghold with an undamaged catapult; the stronghold you reached last time is not kept.
Can I play Siege Shot on a phone?
Yes. Press anywhere on the screen, pull back and let go, so your thumb never has to find the catapult. A very short pull cancels the aim instead of firing, which lets you back out of a bad shot.
Can I repair my catapult?
No. It survives three bolts in total across the whole run, so silencing each ballista quickly matters more as the strongholds grow and their ballistas fire faster.
Is there an ending?
No. From the fifth stronghold on, each new one has five columns and a ballista firing every 3 seconds, and they keep arriving until your catapult is wrecked or you run out of rocks.
