Frequently Asked Questions

The game supports 2–12 simultaneous players, a mix of humans and CPU opponents. By default, 8 CPU tanks fill the lobby. Each time a human joins, one CPU is removed to keep the total count balanced. When a human disconnects, a CPU respawns to fill the gap. The admin can set CPU count anywhere from 0 to 20.

Every kill earns you points. Your score and kill count are tracked in real time and displayed both in your personal HUD (bottom-left of the screen) and the live leaderboard (top-left). The leaderboard shows the top 10 players ranked by score. There's no session timer — battles run indefinitely until the server restarts or the admin changes the map.

When your tank is destroyed, a spectacular explosion fires off and your camera stays in place. After a 3-second countdown a red pulsing RESPAWN button appears. Click it to re-enter the battle at a safe random spawn point. CPU tanks respawn automatically after a short delay — only human players choose when to respawn.

Yes! Bullets ricochet off walls up to 2 times before disappearing. This creates interesting geometry-based shot opportunities — you can fire around corners, set traps, and catch enemies by surprise with angled shots. Mastering ricochets separates good players from great ones.

CPU tanks have three behavioral modes:

• Pursue: Sprint toward a nearby enemy, strafe sideways, and retreat if too close
• Wander: Drift toward the center of the map with 40% bias (avoiding edge camping)
• Escape: On wall collision, pick a random new direction — no more circling in place

They fire every 3–8 seconds. They're challenging but beatable.

• 🏜️ Desert — Sandy floors with rippled dune detail, warm tan walls with orange accents
• 🌲 Forest — Deep green floors with moss patches, rich emerald walls
• ❄️ Arctic — Ice-blue floors with crystal sparkles, steel-blue frosted walls
• 🏙️ Urban — Grey concrete floors, urban steel walls with cool tones
• 🌋 Volcano — Dark basalt floors with lava glow cracks, obsidian walls with ember lighting

Absolutely yes. This is one of Tiny Tanks' coolest features. All players share a single authoritative server map — same walls, same positions. But each player's browser renders their own chosen faction theme. A Desert player and an Arctic player are fighting on exactly the same map, just with different visual skins. Faction is purely cosmetic — it never affects gameplay.

The admin can set a global theme from the admin panel, but this only affects players who haven't personally chosen a faction at the login screen. Players who pick a faction on login always see their own chosen theme — the admin cannot override a player's personal choice.

• Move: W A S D or Arrow keys
• Aim turret: Move your mouse — the turret always faces the cursor
• Fire: Left mouse click, or Space
• Exit game: Click the Exit button (top-right) or press Escape

Not currently. Tiny Tanks requires a keyboard for movement and a mouse for aiming. Mobile/touch support with virtual joysticks is on our feature roadmap but not yet implemented. For the best experience, use a desktop or laptop with a mouse.

Yes. There is a 600ms cooldown between shots — about 1.67 shots per second for humans. This prevents spam shooting and rewards precision aim. CPU tanks have a slower fire rate of roughly one shot every 3–8 seconds.

• Server: Node.js + Socket.io, running a 20-tick-per-second authoritative game loop
• Rendering: HTML5 Canvas API — pure JavaScript, no game engine, no WebGL
• Networking: WebSockets via Socket.io for real-time bi-directional state sync
• Maps: Procedurally generated via recursive backtracker maze algorithm
• No download, no plugins, no frameworks — just Node and a browser

Any modern browser with WebSocket and Canvas support works — that means Chrome, Firefox, Edge, Safari (desktop). We test primarily on Chrome. If you encounter rendering issues, try Chrome for the best experience.

Maps are created using a recursive backtracker maze algorithm which guarantees every cell is reachable (no isolated areas). Three density modes exist:

• Dense — Full maze with maximum walls (~50%+ coverage)
• Medium — 50% of interior walls randomly removed for more open combat lanes
• Open (default) — Border walls + small scattered wall clusters, targeting ~12% interior coverage

The 160×160 pixel mini-map (bottom-right of the screen) renders a scaled-down version of the full map, showing wall layout, all live tanks (with turret direction dots), and a white rectangle representing your current camera viewport. It updates at the same 20fps rate as the game. Your own tank is slightly brighter than enemy dots.

Navigate to /admin in your browser (same host and port as the game). You'll be prompted for a password. The default admin password is set in the server configuration. The admin panel shows live player stats and lets you adjust game settings on the fly.

• CPU count — Slider from 0 to 20 CPU opponents
• Map size — Normal (25×25 tiles) or Big (41×41 tiles)
• Wall density — Dense, Medium, or Open (regenerates the map)
• Map theme — Global visual region: Desert, Forest, Arctic, Urban, or Volcano

Changing map size or density regenerates the entire map and respawns all players.

Yes! Tiny Tanks is an active project. We're a small indie team and we ship fast. Follow us to stay up to date with new features, balance changes, and major releases.

Our current wishlist (not guaranteed or ordered):

• 📱 Mobile touch controls with virtual joystick
• 🏟️ Private rooms with shareable invite codes
• 🏆 Persistent accounts with stats and rankings
• 🌐 Multiple game modes (Capture the Flag, Team Deathmatch)
• 🎯 Power-ups on the map (speed boost, shield, multi-shot)
• 🛡️ Tank customization (skins, decals)
• 🔊 Sound effects and background music

Use our Contact page to send us feedback, bug reports, or feature requests. We read everything. If something feels wrong in the game — a CPU behaving oddly, rendering glitches, or balance issues — please tell us with as much detail as possible (browser, what happened, how to reproduce).

The base game will always be free to play in your browser. We may introduce optional cosmetic purchases in the future (tank skins, faction badges) but will never add pay-to-win mechanics. Our priority is a fair, skill-based competitive experience for everyone.