What it is

Air hockey for two people on the same screen. It is the only game on this site two can play at once, and that is the entire reason it exists.

The table runs along the long edge of whatever you are holding. Upright, the goals are top and bottom; turn it sideways and they are left and right. The far end's score is printed upside down, because somebody is sitting there.

There is no mode to choose

Every paddle plays itself until a hand touches its half of the table. From that moment it belongs to that person, and the computer does not ask for it back.

So one person gets a game against the computer by touching one end, and two people get a game against each other by touching both. Nobody agrees on anything first, and a second person can join in the middle of a rally rather than waiting for the point to finish.

Left alone it plays itself. Twelve seconds after somebody wins it returns to the title and starts again, so a screen nobody is standing at is always doing something — unless a finger is still on the glass, in which case it waits.

First to five, and the puck never sits still

Five goals wins. After each one the puck is served sideways rather than placed at rest, which keeps the table looking alive without handing anybody a free goal — a serve nobody touches drifts across and reaches neither net.

How to play

Take a paddleTouch your end of the table
Move itSlide your finger in your half
Start, or play againTap anywhere

One finger per half. A second finger in a half that somebody already has is ignored rather than taking the paddle over, so a stray hand can't steal it mid-rally.

On a desktop the mouse moves whichever paddle's half it is in, and nothing is behind a key — there are no keyboard controls at all. But a mouse is one pointer and this game is built for two: the two-player game needs a touchscreen.

The opponent

The computer paddle moves at about two-thirds of the puck's top speed and steers on a slightly stale reading of where the puck is. It is beatable by construction rather than by a difficulty setting — fifteen straight shots swept across the mouth of its goal put two to four past it.

What isn't settled yet

Whether two people who have never seen it can walk up, take an end each and start playing without either of them asking a question. Nothing that runs in a browser can test that.

Posture is the other one. Two players at either end of a phone is a very different proposition from two at either end of a tablet lying flat on a table, and only the second has actually been thought through.

There is also no way to quieten it. The sound is generated as it plays rather than loaded from a file, and there is no mute.

Credits and licences

No third-party engine and no embedded typefaces — it uses whichever fonts your device already has. Cover art was composited from a base image created with Grok (xAI).

Far End is original work by Launchway Games.