Doodle Militia

A four-way jetpack deathmatch in a sketched arena: three minutes, ten kills, one fuel bar

Single player
shooter
action

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About Doodle Militia

Four soldiers drop into the same hand-drawn arena and shoot at each other for three minutes. You are one of them. Blue, Violet and Amber are run by the computer, and all three hunt one another as readily as they hunt you, so the board at the end ranks all four rather than declaring a duel.

Flight is the part that takes learning. The jetpack draws on a single fuel bar that empties in a little under two and a half seconds of held thrust, refills quickly once your feet are on something, and barely at all while you are airborne. Height is something you spend, not something you own. The map is a stack of platforms between two cliffs, and the upper ledges are worth reaching precisely because getting there costs fuel you may want back for a dodge.

Weapons sit on six pads around the arena. The blaster you start with never runs dry and never kills quickly, so most of a match is a running decision about whether a detour to a pad is worth the exposure.

What is different about this version

Browser shooters of this shape are usually duels. This one is a four-way free-for-all where the bots fight each other, so kills pile up on the board while you are nowhere near them. The six weapon pads have no fixed contents — each rerolls between SMG, shotgun, sniper and rocket every nine seconds, which removes the usual habit of sprinting to the known sniper spawn. Recoil is a real force rather than a camera shake: the rocket shoves you back a hundred and ten units, the shotgun ninety, so the heavy weapons double as escape tools. And the difficulty setting only touches bot reaction time, aim error and whether they lead a moving target. It never hands them extra health.

How to play Doodle Militia

Move left and right along the ground; press up to fire the jetpack.
The jetpack drains one fuel bar that refills fastest while you are standing on something.
Aim and shoot. The blaster you start with never runs out.
Cross one of the six weapon pads to swap to whatever is sitting on it.
First to ten kills wins; otherwise the clock decides at three minutes.
Difficulty can be changed from the pause sheet without restarting.

Controls

Desktop	A and D to move, W or Space for the jetpack, mouse to aim and click to fire.
Phone or tablet	The left stick moves and flies when pushed up; the right stick aims and fires where you hold it.
Players	One player. Any other characters on screen are run by the game.

Strategy

Fuel decides most exchanges. A full tank is roughly two and a half seconds of thrust, the ground refills it about six times faster than the air, and a soldier hovering on empty is the easiest target on the map. Climb in taps rather than one held burn and treat every landing as a refuel. The platforms sit close enough that a short hop and a controlled fall will move you between most of them without draining the bar.

Weapon choice is a range decision. The blaster does twelve damage a shot, so a kill is nine clean hits — fine as a finisher, poor as an opener. The sniper does sixty and kills in two, but you carry six rounds with a full second between them, so it pays only at distance against something already committed to a direction. Shotgun pellets expire after a very short flight, making it a point-blank weapon and nothing else. Rockets arc and drop, so lead them and aim at the floor beside a target rather than the target itself.

The bots have one habit worth exploiting: they try to hold around three hundred units of separation and strafe there. Crowd inside that and they retreat into open air where their aim error tells. On Hard they also lead your movement, so a steady sideways strafe is exactly what they are shooting at. Break the rhythm, or break the plane by climbing, and the shot lands where you were.

Mistakes that cost you the game

Climbing in one long burn. You arrive at the top with an empty tank and nothing left for the dodge.
Taking every fight personally. Two bots already trading damage is a free kill for whoever turns up third.
Opening an exchange with the blaster. Nine hits at twelve damage is a long time to stand in the open.
Firing a rocket at something close. The splash reaches back to you and the kick throws you into whatever is behind.

Tips

Fly in pulses and touch down between them; ground refuelling is roughly six times faster than air.
Memorise where the six pads are rather than what is on them — the type changes on every respawn.
Do not spend a sniper round on a soldier that has just reappeared; it still has its spawn shield.
Height wins fights, but only if you have somewhere to land before the bar runs out.

Questions about Doodle Militia

Is this two players sharing a device?

No. You take on three computer soldiers — Blue, Violet and Amber — in a free-for-all.

How long does a match last?

Three minutes, or until someone reaches ten kills. The kill count usually settles it first.

What happens after I am killed?

You reappear a couple of seconds later at full health with a brief shield and the starting blaster.

Do picked-up weapons run out?

All of them. The sniper carries six rounds and the rocket four; when a weapon is empty you drop back to the blaster.

Does it cost anything?

No. Doodle Militia is free to play, runs in your browser, and needs no download, install or account.

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