START HERE
How to play
RoboWars takes about ten seconds to learn and a lot longer to get good at. Everything you actually control fits on three keys.
The loop
1. Pick a bot. Four builds with genuinely different armour, speed, range and cadence. There is no wrong answer, only a wrong matchup.
2. Choose a tactic. Adaptive, rush or kite. This is how your robot decides for itself when you are not pressing anything.
3. Add a module. Capacitor, plating, vampire or thruster. One tradeoff, no upgrade tree.
4. Fight. Robots move and fire autonomously for 45 seconds. Watch the energy bars.
5. Intervene. Spend your energy on one or two well-timed commands. That is the whole skill ceiling.
6. Learn and rematch. The result screen tells you what helped and what failed. Same seed, different plan, different ending.
Controls
| Key | Action |
|---|---|
| 1 | Overdrive — 35 energy, four seconds of boosted fire |
| 2 | Shield — 30 energy, absorbs incoming damage |
| 3 | EMP — 45 energy, stuns and drains the rival |
| P | Pause |
| H | Help |
Touch controls appear on phones. Sound is off until you turn it on.
Modes
Quick Duel
Win by knockout, or by holding the highest hull percentage when the bell rings.
Reactor Rush
Hold the glowing centre to bank reactor points. Most points wins; knockouts still win outright. EMP interrupts capture.
Daily Boss
One UTC-day seed and one rival, identical for every player. Post the challenge link and let a friend try the same scenario with their own decisions.
Sharing and replays
Every fight is deterministic. A shared challenge contains the matchup, the seed, the build and the command timings — so a friend can replay your exact battle and then try to beat it. Exports include a PNG battle card and a JSON match file.
Shared runs are unranked, and the records they produce live in your browser. Export anything you want to keep.
Questions
Do I need an account?
No. No signup, no email, no API key.
Is it pay-to-win?
There is nothing to buy. Every bot, tactic and module is available immediately.
Are the bots real AI models?
No. They are small rule-based game AIs that run entirely in your browser. We do not claim otherwise anywhere on this site.
Why did I lose with more damage?
Usually energy. A robot that fires constantly has nothing left when it matters. Watch the cooldowns, not the health bars.