Play Scrapwhirl • Free

Everything in Scrapwhirl comes back to the ring. Each piece you catch whirls round Tink in its own slot, lagging and wobbling as you drive. While you hold the magnet, the ring squeezes in and spins faster, and its reach for loose scrap grows. When you let go, every piece flies outward with a little of the whirl's swing, so the blast fans round. A blast at full charge from a full ring is the biggest hit in the game.

That makes every blast a choice. Blasting empties the ring, so Tink is open to shots and rams until it fills again. Holding on keeps you safe but slows you down. The wreckage of every robot you hit becomes the next ring.

Bolters are one-wheeled balls that roll straight at Tink, weaving a little, and ram. Spitters are tripod turrets that keep their distance, plant their feet, glow and fire pink plasma; later on they fire three shots at once. Your ring blocks the shots, and flying scrap swats them out of the air.

Tuskers are bulldozers. One trundles closer, revs while an arrow on the floor shows where it will go, then charges in a straight line. Step aside and let it crash into a wall or a prop: a dazed Tusker takes double damage. Snatchers are hover drones with magnets of their own. They circle just outside your ring and pull pieces out of it, and wrecking one drops everything it took.

The first wave that brings in a new kind of robot says what it does in its banner.

Junkjaw is a huge gunmetal compactor truck with a hopper of junk on its back and a jaw full of teeth. It trundles after Tink and takes turns between a charge, spitting cubes of compacted scrap that hop about the arena, and a bite when Tink gets close. The bite knocks pieces out of your ring. Cubes hurt Tink, but your ring or a blast smashes them into scrap to catch.

Below half health it goes mad: it moves faster, spits three cubes at a time, and a few robots drop in to help. Each time it comes back in the same run it has more health. Wrecking it pays a big score bonus, extra coins, three gold nuts and two battery cells.

The Sunset Scrapyard has conveyor belts that carry Tink, robots and scrap along, and a magnet pad that drags everything in, then pops and fires the scrap it gathered back out. The Tyre Pit has two crane hooks swinging across it and two magnet pads; a hook smashes robots out of its way and stops a charging robot dead. The Cinder Foundry has four crushers fed by belts. A crusher shudders and its lamp blinks before it slams, and anything under it is wrecked outright, so lure robots under. The Rust Dock mixes belts, a crane hook and crushers.

None of the machinery picks a side. It hurts Tink as readily as the robots, so the trick is to make it work for you. Each arena explains its machinery in a banner the first time you go in.

Each arena counts its own waves from one, but the later ones start harder. Clearing ten waves in one arena (in a single run) opens the next gate in the yard, and the gate's plate shows your best score there.

Clearing a wave pays coins, more for later waves and later arenas, with a bonus for beating Junkjaw. Now and then a wrecked robot drops a gold nut that twinkles on the floor: catch it in your ring for five coins. Coins are banked the moment you earn them, so even a run that ends early keeps them. At the end of each wave, the scrap lying about hops over to Tink.

The garage is the shed in the corner of the yard. Hold the magnet in front of it to roll the shutter up. Inside, Tink stands on a turntable under three hydraulic arms, one for each slot: the top, the body and the drive. Pick an arm, have it swap to another part, and hold the magnet to pull the part onto Tink. Buying and fitting are the same pull, and the part Tink had goes back up onto the arm.

On top, the Coil Crown reaches further and holds 32 pieces instead of 24, the Scrap Cannon fires every blast forward in a cone and hits harder, and the Quick Spark charges almost twice as fast. For the body, the Bolt Plate adds a sixth battery cell, the Spike Skirt hurts Bolters that ram you, and the Clamp Shell stops Snatchers stealing and spills fewer pieces when Tink is hit. For the drive, Turbo Treads are faster and don't slow down while pulling, Spring Hop makes a full-charge blast jump so that the landing stuns the robots round Tink, and Grip Treads hold Tink still on belts and pads and halve the damage from crushers. Every part shows on Tink.

Everything you fight in Scrapwhirl is a cartoon robot or a piece of machinery in a junkyard. There are no people, animals or blood in the game. A wrecked robot bursts into bolts, gears, plates and sparks.

All the sound is made in code: the motor and the magnet's whine, the clink of every piece of scrap, each robot's moves, the machinery, and junkyard synth music that changes with the yard, each arena and Junkjaw. The M key or the button on the pause card turns it off, and the game follows the site's mute as well.

Your best score and waves cleared in each arena, your coins, the parts you own, the parts Tink wears and your sound setting are saved on Unihfy Games in this browser. Your score here is your best single run.