Pocket Tanks

Pocket Tanks is a turn-based strategic artillery, scorced-earth type game. Players alternately fire wacky weapons at each other hoping to hit the other and gain points. The game has a ten minute learning curve and has room for tons of strategy. There is a free demo version with 30 weapons, a deluxe version with 60 weapons ($15.99) and 11 expansion packs make it possible to have 165 different weapons(5-weapon expansions are free, but 15-weapon expansions are $7.99 each). The game is available here.

Game structure

One game of Pocket Tanks takes about 5-10 minutes. This is the basic structure of the game.

1. Choose One Player (play against the computer), Two Players (alternate turns with a friend) or Target Practice (play against a friend with all of the weapons available). (Note: If you choose Target Practice, you skip all of the following steps.)
2. Choose Player 1's name and color (and Player 2's name and color if you chose Two Players).
3. Choose computer's difficulty if you chose One Player.
4. 20 weapons chosen at random will show up on the screen. Player 1 chooses first, then the computer (or Player 2) will choose one. You take turns choosing weapons until each player has chosen 10 weapons. You can also choose Random to make the computer randomly select weapons.
5. Now main gameplay starts. The two players take turns adjusting their power, angle and weapons. Each hit against your enemy earns you a certain amount of points, and each hit against yourself deducts points. Once all of the weapons have been used, the player with the largest point score wins.

Weapons

Basic and deluxe weapons

• Big Dirtball: Shot that expands into a big ball of dirt. Does no damage.
• Big Shot: Shot that does medium damage with a relatively large blast radius.
• Boomerang: Shot that lands on ground and back tracks toward you until finally exploding.
• Bouncy dirt: Creates a bouncy substance that covers dirt. All weapons bounce off of it a certain amount of times before activating.
• Cannon ball: Shot that bounces a few times off of dirt before activating. No blast radius (direct hit).
• Chain Reaction: Shot that creates a blast that sets off a chain of blasts in a medium-sized area.
• Color Bomb: A shot that stops mid air above the enemy and small bursts of color come out.
• Crater Maker: A shot with a big blast radius and does some damage.
• Crazy Ivan: A shot that breaks up into pieces above your enemy and flys in to do damage.
• Cruball: A shot that rolls on the ground until it reaches a tank. It then coves that tank in dirt.
• Cruiser: A shot that rolls on the ground for a while then explodes.
• Digger: A shot that removes a small amount of dirt near you.
• Dirtball: Shot that expands into a small amount of dirt.
• Dirt Mover: A shot that removes a big amount of dirt.
• Dirt Slinger: A shot that turns into a triangle of dirt and settles on the ground.
• Firebolt: A shot that explodes into a ball of fire (direct hit).
• Firecracker: A shot that creates a chain reaction moving horizontally both ways.
• Fission Bomb: A shot that spreads into a wide array of small shots.
• Five Shot: Five single shots.
• Flash Blast: A shot with a large blast radius that does not destroy dirt.