Games in GunBound are played between two teams. Each team can have 1-4 players, so games are commonly referred to as 1v1, 2v2, 3v3, and 4v4. The four game modes will be listed below.
Killing a player
Usually the objective in GunBound is to kill enemy players. This is achieved by reducing their HP to 0, or destroying the ground underneath them so that they fall into a bottomless pit. This is known as bunging a player. The infinitive form of this verb is to bunge.
Game mode: Solo
Each player has one life. If you die, you are out. The team that eliminates all members of the enemy team wins. There may be a draw if no one is left. Solo is usually a very fast game mode.
Game mode: Tag
Similar to Solo: if you die, you are out. However, each player can choose two mobiles. The first one has full HP, but the second one has half HP. Once per turn, a player may choose to switch between their two mobiles. If the mobile they currently have in play is eliminated, they are out regardless of how much HP the other mobile has.
Game mode: Score
Each team has N + 1 lives, where N is the number of players on the team. So a 3v3 game would have 4 lives on each team. Whenever a player is killed, their team loses a life. That player can respawn after a certain number of turns. A team wins when they reduce the number of lives on the other team to 0, or eliminate all enemy players at the same time. Score generally takes longer than other modes.
Respawning
When a player is killed, they may click on the map to respawn. That location will be shown to all players, along with a counter showing the number of turns until that player respawns. When this happens, the player will drop from the sky on to that location. Their landing is affected by Wind to a small degree.
The player will respawn four turns from the time they click. The order in the turn list in which they respawn depends on their Delay; more complex details will be discussed on that page. Note that it may be advantageous to wait some number of turns before clicking.
Game mode: Jewel
The objective is to destroy targets, called Jewels, for points. The first team to reach 100 points or exceed 100 points wins. (Note, it is 100 points regardless of 1v1 or 4v4, which is somewhat disappointing design-wise. One might consider that to be a "bug".)
Jewels randomly drop from the sky, and are worth 5, 10, 25, or -5 points. The ones with -5 points become 5 points after sitting there a certain number of turns. The amount of damage required to destroy a Jewel varies: it takes 100 damage for 5 or -5 points, 200 damage for 10 points, and 300 damage for 25 points. The damage must be dealt in a single turn.
Generally an unpopular game mode, but is well-suited for practice.
Player killing in Jewel
Players are invincible and take no damage from attacks. However, land can still be destroyed, so it is possible to bunge enemies. If all players are bunged at the same time, the team loses. Otherwise, a bunged player can click to respawn like in Score. They will take two turns to respawn. Lives are not counted, so respawning is free.