How to play

Your first match.

Everything here is also in the game's Almanac, which has every rule. Start with a warm-up and the court teaches its own fold.

Five steps to the whistle.

Make a robot
Open the Robot editor, or pick one of the four starting robots and go.
Press Play
Quick play picks the sport and court for you. Custom match lets you choose.
Warm up
Each court's warm-up teaches its fold in about a minute.
Read the doorway
Doorways show exactly where they lead. Look through one before you throw through it.
Hear the whistle
The deciding moment replays, the winners take the podium, and Career records your tricks.

The sports

Four tag sports, plus Relay.

Dodgeball

Hold to charge a throw, release to let it go. A live ball that hits a robot tags it.
Catch a live ball and the tag goes back on the thrower.
Bank a throw off a wall, or send it through a doorway. Strafe as you throw to add spin and curve the ball.
A ball can knock an incoming live throw dead. A thrown or passed ball that stops one counts as a block.
Drop the ball to free your hands, or pass it to a teammate. A teammate's tag soon after your pass counts as your assist.

Laser Tag

Your blaster fires travelling pulses from a magazine. Lead your target: pulses take time to arrive.
Pulses take the shield first, then health. A robot with no health left is tagged.
Reload when the magazine runs dry. Rivals can see you doing it.
Stay out of trouble for a moment and health repairs and the shield recharges.

Tracer

Hold to burn a beam. It wears down the shield, then health.
The beam spends energy. Release before it runs out and the meter refills.
Beams go through doorways too.

Blast

Live throws detonate on contact. Direct hits tag at once; splash damages shields and health.
Your own blasts launch you without hurting you. Use the floor for a jump or a wall for a dash.
Blasts scatter loose balls and can chain-detonate other live bombs. You cannot catch in Blast.

Relay

One caged ball starts in a neutral cradle on the floor. Carry it into your team's home socket to score a delivery.
First to three deliveries wins, or the most deliveries when the clock runs out.
Tagging the carrier stops the run, but tags score nothing in Relay.
Throw or pass the ball to a teammate on the way. Played on Dollhouse and Carousel.

Make it your match.

In standard tag matches, each tag is one point. Custom match also offers Elimination: best of five rounds, no respawn within a round, and a living teammate's view when you are out. Possession moves the robot that lands a tag into the victim's place; a catch swaps the catcher into the thrower's place. Neither format applies to Relay.

Keep moving. Crouch while moving quickly to slide. Jump alongside a wall to wall-run, then jump again to kick off. Land on a marked rail to grind it and jump to leave it.

Watch it again. Results offers Save film and Theater; Club → Theater holds recent matches. Switch cameras, cut clips, take screenshots or render an MP4 on Windows. Record films can be switched off in Settings.

Controls

Keyboard, controller or touch.

Any action can be remapped in Settings, with conflict checks. The game shows your own controller's button names.

Action	Keyboard and mouse	Controller	Touch
Move	`W` `A` `S` `D` or arrows	Left stick	Movement ring
Look	Mouse	Right stick	Drag the right side
Throw or catch	Left or right mouse	Right trigger	Action pad: hold and drag to aim
Pass	`E`	North face button	Pass pad
Jump · hold for jetpack	`Space`	South face button	Jump pad
Boost	`Shift`	Left shoulder	Boost pad
Crouch · slide at speed	`Ctrl`	Left stick press	Crouch pad
Drop the ball	`G`	West face button	Drop pad (Reload in Laser Tag)
Chirp: point, beckon, shrug	`1` `2` `3`	Right shoulder, left trigger, right stick press	Talk
Pause	`Esc`	Menu	Menu

The iPhone touch layout in Dollhouse: a movement ring on the left; Crouch, Pass, Boost and Jump pads along the bottom right; Catch and Drop above them; Menu and Talk at the top right — On a phone or tablet
Left thumb moves, right thumb looks. Hold the action pad and drag to aim. Pads are sized for thumbs and can be resized or flipped for left hands in Settings, on the Touch tab.
Touch aim assist and haptics are on the same tab.

Powerups and special balls

Pick them up off the floor.

Pads are dealt into each court's sockets. Every pickup is an object you can see. None changes what a tag is worth, and none is for sale.

Full Charge

Refills your boost at once.

Mag-Tread

Sharper acceleration, braking and turning for a while. Top speed stays the same.

Springstep

Stores one big jump for your next take-off.

Overdrive

Boost reaches a much higher top speed for a while.

Jetpack

One tank of thrust. Hold Jump to burn it.

Titan

Your next real throw is massive. Dodgeball only.

Vector ball

Flies with no gravity and stays armed through banks. Slower, so easier to read. No homing.

Encore ball

Retraces its route after it lands, through doorways too. The return cannot tag.

Fold Capacitor

Send it through a fold and it charges: more bounce and more live banks.

The winners’ podium on Dollhouse after the final whistle

Tricks and Career

The court names what you did.

A tag through a doorway, off a bank or in the air gets a name of its own. The twenty styles include Curveball, Wall shot, Slide shot and Grind shot. Court-specific tricks fill out your book.

Career keeps your trick book, your level, daily and weekly challenges, and the looks you have earned for the Robot editor.