Basket Duel

🎮 About This Game

Basket Duel squeezes a full game of 1-on-1 basketball onto a single screen: two hoops, one ball, and no referee. Grab the loose ball, dribble into range, and arc a shot over your rival — or drive all the way to the rim, rise up, and slam it home. Every mechanic pushes you into your opponent: defenders can body you off your spot, pop the ball loose with a well-timed steal, and swat your shot clean out of the air. Distance matters the way it should — shots inside the arc are worth 2, anything beyond the dashed line counts 3, and a 7-second shot clock keeps anyone from stalling. First to 11 points wins. Play solo against three CPU levels or share a keyboard with a friend and settle who owns the driveway.

🎯 How to Play

Touch a free ball to pick it up. With the ball, press your action key to shoot — your player arcs the ball toward the hoop automatically, and accuracy depends on range: close shots and jump shots are reliable, deep threes are a gamble. Get airborne right at the rim and the same key becomes a guaranteed dunk. On defense, press the action key next to the ball-handler to poke the ball loose, jump into a rising shot to block it, or just lean on your rival to shove them off their favorite spot. After a basket the scored-on player gets the ball back. Solo mode: Arrow Keys move, ▲ jumps, Space shoots and steals. On one keyboard, Player 1 uses WASD plus Space while Player 2 uses the Arrow Keys plus the / key. P pauses, R restarts, Esc returns to the menu.

💡 Tips & Strategy

• ▸Mid-range is your bread and butter. In our playtests, calm set shots from just inside the arc dropped about 80 percent of the time, while the same shot hoisted from deep three territory fell closer to half.
• ▸Jump before you shoot when a defender is nearby. A contested shot scatters badly, but rising up first shrinks the penalty — and if the defender jumps with you, drive past them instead.
• ▸The dunk window is strict on purpose: you must be airborne and right at the rim. Time your jump so you press shoot near the apex — jumping early and mashing gives you an awkward short-range heave instead.
• ▸Don't shoot from directly under the hoop. The ball will clip the front rim on the way up. Step out a body-width first, or jump and dunk.
• ▸Defense is physical. Standing in the dribbler's path slows them to a crawl, and your steal poke has real range — but every whiff locks it out for half a second, so don't spam it.
• ▸Watch the 7-second shot clock on long possessions. When the countdown appears over the ball-handler's head, the ball is about to pop loose — crash in for the scramble.
• ▸A missed shot is not a dead play. Rattled balls and floor bounces stay live, and a put-back off your own rebound still counts for 2.

❓ Frequently Asked Questions