Spiral Touchdown

Spiral Touchdown is a free American football game you play with one finger, right in your browser with no download. You are the quarterback. The field is drawn from above, your blue team lines up at the bottom and the rival defense waits in front of you in its own colours. Before the snap, dashed arrows show the route each receiver is about to run. Touch the field and the ball is snapped; the receivers start running and the defense starts covering them.

Throwing works like a slingshot. Keep your finger down and pull back, away from where you want the ball to go. A dotted arc and a landing ring appear, and the further you pull, the deeper the throw, up to the range of your arm. When one of your receivers can reach the ring in time, it turns green and that receiver lights up. Let go and the ball flies in a spinning spiral to the spot you picked, and the receiver runs to it. The trick is to throw where he is going, into open grass, not where he is now, and away from the defender who is covering him.

You cannot wait forever. A ring around the quarterback's feet shows how long your line can hold the rush. When it runs out, the defensive linemen break through, and if they reach you before you throw you are sacked and lose three yards and a down. Some teams blitz and shorten that time a lot.

After the catch your runner takes off on his own and steers around tacklers by himself. Your second job is the juke. When a defender gets close he crouches for a moment, with a red exclamation mark over his head, and then dives. Tap anywhere during that moment and your runner cuts sideways: the diving defender lands face down in the grass and is out of the play for a second. Tap too early and you waste the move, because a juke needs a short moment to recover before you can use it again. Defenders get faster as the season goes on, so a long run can need more than one juke.

Each game you have four downs to score a touchdown. A touchdown on your first down earns three footballs on the scoreboard, two on the second and one after that. Run out of downs or throw an interception and you try the game again. From game 16 the rival scores first, and you need a touchdown on two drives in a row to win; from game 40, and in the title game, you need three. The season has 48 games against eight rival teams, and each team plays differently. The Harbor Gulls cover you man to man, the Desert Coyotes guard zones with gaps between them, the Timber Moose blitz, the Canyon Hawks play in a wind that pushes your throws (a flag on the sideline shows which way), the Night Owls have a safety who jumps throws to intercept, the Iron Rams dive in pairs, so you wait until both crouch and beat them with one juke, and they get up fast after a miss, the Storm Sharks play in the rain where the wet ball is harder to catch, and the Thunder Kings mix all of it. After the title game the Pro season goes on with random rivals.

Your first three minutes are practice: no throw gets intercepted and the line holds the rush longer, so you can learn the slingshot in peace. Every game pays coins, and you can double them once with a short video. In the Locker Room coins buy four team upgrades with five levels each. Arm throws further, Hands widens the circle in which a receiver makes the catch, Speed makes your receivers faster, and Juke shortens the recovery between jukes. Six kits change your team's colours. If you run out of downs you can watch a video, once per game, for one extra down. Your season, coins, upgrades and kits are saved in your browser, a daily reward adds coins when you come back, and the games you win count on the weekly board.