How to play Mad Orbs
Modes, controls, weapons and tips
Mad Orbs is a free online shooting game that runs right in your browser. Each player controls an Orb, an armed ball that rolls around the arena with real momentum: it picks up speed, skids around corners and takes a moment to stop. The camera shows the arena from above and the fights are fast: whoever goes down respawns in a few seconds and is back in the action. Nothing to install, no account to create: open madorbs.com, pick a name and play with your friends.
Getting started
- On the start screen, choose your Orb's style and colors and type a name (or let the game pick one).
- On the Multiplayer card, choose the mode (Deathmatch, Teams or Flag) and click PLAY NOW: you join that mode's online match, with whoever is playing right now. With few people in the room, bots (tagged BOT) fill the match until more people arrive; they don't count in the stats.
- First time? The Tutorial shortcut, under the cards, has two quick tutorials of about two minutes: the PvP one, at a shooting range with every weapon on the floor (your damage and DPS show under each target, and the knife and the grenade are part of the lesson), and the Waves one. The first time you click PLAY NOW or open the Waves, the game asks if you want the tutorial first.
- Want to practice first? In the same shortcut, Train with bots starts a match in your browser alone, against bots, on any map and mode.
- Playing with friends? The Room with friends shortcut (you need to be signed in to create one; your friends don't to join) makes a match only for you: pick the mode, the map, the goal and the time, send the link (or the code) and start the match when everybody is in. As the host you also move players between the teams, change the map, remove someone or lock the room. Private matches don't count for the ranking.
- Before you spawn, choose your primary and secondary weapons. The weapon menu comes back any time with Esc, and the change applies on your next respawn.
Game modes
Full rules and tips for each mode in Game modes.
- Deathmatch: free for all. Each kill is worth a point, and the first to reach the map's limit wins.
- Team Deathmatch: blue team against red team. The game balances the teams itself, every kill counts for your team and you can't hurt your teammates.
- Capture the Flag: each team has a flag at its own base. Touch the enemy base to take their flag and bring it to yours, with your own flag in place, to score. Whoever dies carrying the flag drops it: its team returns it by touching it, and the other team can grab it again.
Matches rotate through dozens of maps, from closed arenas to forts full of corridors, some with rain, snow or lava. In the team modes the Orbs turn blue or red and keep the style each player picked.
Controls
- W A S D: move your Orb
- Mouse: aim. Left button: shoot (and spawn)
- Right button: grenade. Middle button: Molotov cocktail
- Space: secondary weapon (knives, nuke bot or shield)
- F: swap for the weapon lying on the ground
- Tab: scoreboard. T: chat. M: music on and off
- Esc: weapon menu, with the sound button in the corner
Mad Orbs needs a keyboard and a mouse: play on a computer, with Chrome, Edge or Firefox.
Primary weapons
Numbers and details for each one in the weapons guide.
- Sub Machine Gun: balanced, the weapon everyone starts with.
- Shotgun: several pellets in a cone. Devastating up close, weak from afar.
- Sniper Rifle: a precise, heavy shot for those who aim from far away.
- Dual Machine Gun: two guns: more damage than the sub machine gun, less accuracy.
- Chain Gun: the highest sustained damage in the game, but it overheats if you don't let go of the trigger.
- Bazooka: a rocket with an area blast. While it flies, click again to detonate it right away. Watch out for the wall in front of you.
- Photon Rifle: a beam that goes through several Orbs in a line, stronger up close.
- Flame Thrower: goes through Orbs, with a short range: the closer, the more damage.
Secondary weapons and explosives
- Popup Knives: a melee strike, for those who get close.
- Nuke Bot: a little robot that blows up a few seconds later, with a huge radius.
- Instant Shield: halves the damage you take for a moment.
- Every life starts with grenades and a Molotov cocktail, which leaves fire on the ground.
Tips
- Don't stand still: your Orb has momentum, so start braking or turning early and use it to dodge.
- Whoever goes down drops a health pack, their weapon and the grenades they had left: roll over them to take the health and the grenades, and press F over the weapon to swap it for yours.
- Grenades and Molotovs are great for flushing someone out from behind a wall.
- In Capture the Flag someone has to stay on defense: without your flag at your base, your team can't score.
More on movement, aim, weapons and team tactics in the strategy guide.
About the project
Mad Orbs is made by Érick Matheus de Oliveira and supported by ads. The game's code is open source: it's at github.com/ErickOliveira12eng/MadOrbs. Suggestions, problems and reports: contatomadorbs@gmail.com.