30 second games online

How a 30 second game works here

You press Play and the game opens over the page. It shows you the score to beat and the name of the player who made it. Nothing moves until your first press, so you can look at the course for a moment first.

Then the clock runs for 30 seconds. In most of the games a mistake ends the attempt, not the game: you go back to the start of the same course, one second down the clock, and carry on. Your best attempt inside the 30 seconds is your score.

When the clock runs out you see the result at once: your score beside your rival’s, your place this hour, and who is just above you. One button plays again.

What you are playing against

Every game has a ladder for the current hour. You are not put against the best player first. A new player meets a run from the lower part of the ladder, and after that you always meet the run just above your own best.

Beat it and you climb one place. Keep climbing and you reach the top, where your name goes on the game until somebody beats you or the hour ends. If you hold a game when the hour ends, that hour goes on your card.

Where there are not enough players yet, you play a house player. House players are real recorded runs made by the site, and they are always marked House.

Why the course changes every hour

Each game has a new course every hour, and it is the same course for everybody who plays in that hour. That keeps the ladder fair, because every score on it was made on the same course, and it keeps the game fresh, because last hour’s trick does not work on this hour’s course.

It also means nobody stays on top without playing. The ladder starts again each hour, and the longer boards, Today and This month, count how many hours a player has held a game.

Twelve 30 second games

Stop the dial: stop a sweeping needle on the gold. Stack: drop sliding blocks onto a tower. Sort: circles left, squares right, as fast as you can. Cast: hold, let go, and land a lure on a mark across a lake.

Dodge: hold to rise and let go to fall through a cave. Run: jump hurdles and gaps to a finish line. Drift: tap to turn a car down a winding road. Pulse: tap as each ring lands on the circle.

Orbit: change ring to miss the blocks. Swing: catch a peg, let go and fly to the next. Balance: keep a pole upright in the wind. Catch: move under the gems and away from the bombs.

What 30 seconds is good for

A short game suits the moments that are too small for anything else: a queue, an advert break, the gap between two jobs. It also suits competing, because a rematch costs you half a minute and no more.

It is not a replacement for a long game you love, and it is not meant to be. It is something to do now that is over before you have decided what to do next.

What you need

A web browser. There is nothing to download and no account to make. The games play by touch on a phone, by mouse, or with the space bar and the arrow keys on a keyboard. Sound starts on, and the speaker button in a game turns it off.

Every game is free to play. Start with Stop the dial if you want the quickest to learn, or Pulse if you like keeping a beat.