Should I always take the biggest gate in Swarm Cannon?

No. Whether a multiplier or an addition is better depends on how many units are in the stream. A x3 on eight units gives twenty-four; a +29 gives thirty-seven. Additions win while you are small.

Why did my units not reach a gate?

The corridor is split into three columns by solid dividers. A stream only passes through the gates in the column you aimed it at, so aiming at a seam wastes most of it.

Is there anything to dodge?

No. Swarm Cannon has no reflex element at all - it is entirely about which gates you feed.

Can I play Swarm Cannon on a Chromebook, at school, or on a phone?

Yes on a Chromebook. Swarm Cannon draws with WebGL, which every Chromebook has had for years, and it is built for integrated graphics rather than a dedicated card. On a school or office network there is nothing here for a filter to object to on the usual grounds: no download, no installer, no browser plugin, no account, no chat and no user-generated content. Whether your particular filter lets it through is its decision and not something any site can promise. It plays on a phone with touch controls, and it is built wide - turning the phone sideways gives it the shape it was designed for. A keyboard works too.

Swarm Cannon: Mob Control-Style Game Free

warming up Swarm Cannon…

💡 click the game once so it hears your keyboard

←

Cave Runner

Sketchbook→

Mob control-style game: fire the swarm through the gates

A stream of nobodies, multiplied into an army.

Hold to fire a thin stream of tiny units up a long road and steer it into the gates that make it bigger. The barrel on its own only holds the line - the enemy base sends back about as many as you fire - so every stage is won by what the stream picks up on the way. Rows of gates stand across the road three abreast, with short timber posts flanking each row so a stream aimed at a gate gets that gate and not its neighbour, and the choice is the whole game: a x3 on eight units gives twenty-four, a +29 gives thirty-seven, so the add wins early and the multiply wins late. Between the rows the ground is open, and that is where the two crowds converge and annihilate one for one - the currency is never units, it is units more than they have at the point they meet. The best gates slide across their lane on a beat and have to be caught. Towers in the road change hands and produce for whoever holds them. Crates cost you units to get past. And taking the base is not the end of it: the garrison still standing has to be beaten, so both armies turn round and settle it.

Free to play, no download, no sign-up. Hosted with ❤ by GamerX.

How to play Swarm Cannon

Hold to fire a continuous stream of tiny units up a sand corridor, and drag or use left and right to aim along a rail. The corridor is divided into three columns by physical dividers, and that division is the whole game: a stream sent up one column passes through that column's gates and no others. So at every moment you are choosing between three chains of maths. The arithmetic matters more than the aim, because whether a gate is good depends entirely on how many units are in the stream reaching it - a x3 on eight units gives twenty-four, while a +29 on the same eight gives thirty-seven. Additions win early, multiplications win once the stream is large.

Tips

Work out the crossover. Below roughly the value of the addition, add; above it, multiply. That threshold moves as your stream grows.
Commit to a column for a while. Swinging the aim between columns means your stream is split across gates that each act on fewer units.
The dividers are physical. Units cannot drift between columns, so a stream aimed at the seam is a stream mostly wasted.
Build first, then multiply. A big multiplier reached by a thin stream is the most common way to waste a good gate.

About Swarm Cannon

Swarm Cannon is the purest expression on this site of the crowd-multiplier idea, because it strips out the runner entirely and leaves only the arithmetic. There is no dodging and no reflex test; the whole game is reading three columns of gates and deciding which chain of operations applies best to the number of units you currently have. The physical dividers are the design's key constraint, since without them a stream could be feathered across multiple gates and the choice would evaporate. Visually it is a sand corridor with a readable column structure and a genuinely large number of individual units in flight, which is what makes a good multiplication satisfying rather than abstract.

What you need

Graphics: WebGL, which every browser from the last decade has switched on already
Controls: Keyboard or touchscreen
On a phone: Yes
Install: Nothing. It runs in this tab.

Swarm Cannon vs Mob Control

You fire a stream of units into gates that multiply them and the tower at the end is the win condition - that much is the same. Swarm Cannon is faster and shorter: you are aiming continuously rather than tapping to release, so holding a good line matters more than timing a single shot, and there is no between-run economy at all.

Mob Controlis someone else’s game and not affiliated with GamerX. It is named here because it is the clearest way to describe what Swarm Cannon is.

Questions

Should I always take the biggest gate in Swarm Cannon?: No. Whether a multiplier or an addition is better depends on how many units are in the stream. A x3 on eight units gives twenty-four; a +29 gives thirty-seven. Additions win while you are small.
Why did my units not reach a gate?: The corridor is split into three columns by solid dividers. A stream only passes through the gates in the column you aimed it at, so aiming at a seam wastes most of it.
Is there anything to dodge?: No. Swarm Cannon has no reflex element at all - it is entirely about which gates you feed.
Can I play Swarm Cannon on a Chromebook, at school, or on a phone?: Yes on a Chromebook. Swarm Cannon draws with WebGL, which every Chromebook has had for years, and it is built for integrated graphics rather than a dedicated card. On a school or office network there is nothing here for a filter to object to on the usual grounds: no download, no installer, no browser plugin, no account, no chat and no user-generated content. Whether your particular filter lets it through is its decision and not something any site can promise. It plays on a phone with touch controls, and it is built wide - turning the phone sideways gives it the shape it was designed for. A keyboard works too.