About Hoop Shot
Hoop Shot is a 45-second basketball shooting challenge. You flick the ball at the hoop with a slingshot-style drag and try to sink as many baskets as possible before time runs out. After your fifth basket, the hoop starts sliding from side to side.
How to play
- The 45-second clock starts the moment you first press on the game.
- Each basket scores 1 point. The ball must drop down through the hoop from above to count.
- The ends of the rim deflect the ball, and the side walls bounce it back.
- You get the ball back for the next shot once it has fallen off the bottom of the screen.
- After each basket, the hoop moves to a new random position. After a miss, it stays where it is.
- Once you have 5 baskets, each new hoop also slides left and right, and it moves faster with every further basket.
- When the timer reaches zero, the game ends and your basket count is recorded.
Controls
- Mouse: press on the game, drag back away from the hoop, and release to shoot. The dashed line shows the direction the ball will go.
- Touch: the same drag-and-release motion with your finger.
- A longer drag gives a more powerful shot, up to a limit. Very small drags are ignored. There is no keyboard control.
Tips and strategy
- Find a shot that works and repeat it. Because the hoop stays put after a miss, you can adjust the same shot slightly until it goes in.
- Aim for an arc that drops into the hoop from above. A flat, fast shot tends to hit the rim ends or fly over.
- Do not over-power your shots. A ball that rises very high takes longer to come back down, which wastes seconds on the clock.
- Once the hoop starts moving, release when it is heading towards the point where your ball will arrive, rather than shooting at where it is now.
- The first five baskets are against a still hoop, so take them quickly and accurately to build a buffer before the hard part.
Background
Basketball was invented in December 1891 by James Naismith, a teacher at a YMCA training school in Springfield, Massachusetts, who nailed peach baskets to a balcony as the first goals. The standard rim is still set 10 feet above the floor. Timed shooting games, where players sink as many baskets as they can before a buzzer, have been a fixture of arcades and fairgrounds for decades and capture the shooting part of the sport on its own.
Questions
- When does the hoop start moving?
- After your fifth basket. From then on every new hoop slides from side to side, getting faster with each basket you score.
- When does the timer start?
- As soon as you first press on the game to line up a shot, not when the page loads.
- Where is my best score saved?
- Your best number of baskets is stored in your browser's local storage on this device.