Coil Unblocked
Your pointer leaves a line of light. Wrap it around the blue orbs before time runs out.
Tip: rotate your phone to landscape for a larger view.
What is Coil?
Coil is a pointer-only reflex game by Hakim El Hattab. A short glowing trail follows your mouse or finger, and you capture blue orbs by drawing a loop that closes around them. The goal is to survive as long as possible, catching orbs before they burst while leaving the red bombs untouched, so your energy never reaches zero.
- Category
- Arcade Games
- Players
- 1 player
- Plays on
- Phone, tablet & desktop
- Input
- Mouse, Touch
- Made by
- Hakim El Hattab
- Checked
Coil has no gun, no jump and no button to press. Your whole toolkit is a thin line of light that trails behind your pointer, and you catch things by drawing a lasso that closes on itself. Blue orbs appear around a dark field and start a countdown; red ones are traps waiting for a careless swirl. Hakim El Hattab built it as a small browser experiment, and it plays unblocked here with a mouse or a finger. It feels a bit like doodling against the clock.
The Lasso Rule
Hit Start Game and move. The trail has a fixed length, so the tail end fades away as the front pushes forward. The moment your line crosses an earlier part of itself, the area inside flashes and every orb in that pocket is captured.
Blue orbs do not wait long. A few seconds after appearing, each one shifts to a yellow-green color and flickers, which means it is about to pop. If it bursts, you lose 30 energy and your multiplier falls back to the start. A catch is worth 30 points times the multiplier, and grabbing two or more orbs in one loop adds an extra bonus.
Red orbs are bombs. Closing a loop on one drains 30 energy too, so steer clear and let it fade. Survival time also feeds your score, and the field gets busier the longer you last. The run ends when energy hits zero.
Reading the Top Bar
The strip across the top tells you everything mid-run: energy on the left, the multiplier as three small dots, then the clock and score. Five clean catches in a row move the multiplier up one step, with x4 as the ceiling. A burst orb or a trapped bomb wipes that progress out.
Coil controls
| To do this | Mouse | Touch |
|---|---|---|
| Lead the glowing trail | Just move the mouse, no buttons needed | Slide a finger over the field |
| Begin a run or try again | Click "Start Game" | Tap "Start Game" |
| Switch off the grid background on slow devices | Click "Disable grid effects?" if that prompt shows up | Tap "Disable grid effects?" if that prompt shows up |
Habits of Good Coil Players
Small loops beat big ones. The trail is short, and a wide circle often runs out of line before it closes. Quick, tight spins around one orb are faster and safer.
Triage by color. When several orbs are up, the flickering yellow-green one is the emergency. Fresh blue orbs can wait a second.
Pair neighbors. Two orbs sitting close are worth one slightly larger loop, because the multi-catch bonus pays more and you save a trip.
Scan before you close. Just before finishing a loop, glance inside it. One red orb in the middle can cost you a hard-earned x4.
Keep drifting. A still pointer means a still trail, and you cannot close a loop that is not moving. Hover around the center so every corner is a short trip away.
A Different Kind of Arcade Test
Most score games test aim or timing. Coil tests drawing: how cleanly you can trace a shape at speed, and how well you spot danger inside it. That makes it a nice change of pace on a laptop trackpad or a tablet during a short break. If you enjoy smooth, pointer-driven play, try SpacePi, where you sketch lines to block attacks, or browse more quick reflex picks in our arcade games collection.
Coil: questions players ask
Do you have to click to catch orbs in Coil?
No. You never press a button during a run. Simply move the pointer so the trail crosses over itself, and anything inside the closed shape is caught. Clicking is only needed for the Start Game button.
How many orbs can I miss before the game ends?
The energy bar loses 30 for each orb that bursts and gains just 1 for each catch. From a full bar, four bursts are usually enough to end the run, so treat every flickering orb as urgent.
Is it bad to loop a red orb by accident?
Yes. Trapping a bomb costs the same 30 energy as a missed orb and also drops your multiplier back to x1. Ignore the bombs and they disappear on their own after a short while.
Why does the game suggest turning off grid effects?
The lit background grid uses WebGL and can be heavy on older laptops or school Chromebooks. If the game notices it running slowly, it offers to switch the grid off. The rules stay exactly the same without it.
Credits and license
Coil was created by Hakim El Hattab and released as open source. FreezeNova hosts a lightly adapted copy on its own server, together with the original license file.
- Source code: github.com/leereilly (original project)
- Code license: MIT
- Art & audio: MIT (orbs, trail and text drawn in code; background and grid texture images included in the MIT-licensed repository)
- Our changes: We took out the web fonts and the social sharing buttons, put the author credit inside the game menu and let the playfield resize to fit the frame. The rules have not changed.
