Features

What it is

Handball is a free browser game of real handball: the wall game played with the hand, not Olympic team handball. You play against AI players on four kinds of court, or watch AI players play each other, and the same site teaches the rules and trains referees.

Courts and modes

There are 4 courts. Each one uses its own ball unless a link or the match menu picks another.

• One-Wall Handball: 20 by 34 feet, front wall 16 feet; live surfaces: front; usual ball: Big Blue.
• Three-Wall Handball: 20 by 40 feet, front wall 20 feet; live surfaces: front, left, right; usual ball: Big Blue.
• Four-Wall Handball: 20 by 40 feet, front wall 20 feet; live surfaces: front, back, left, right, ceiling; usual ball: Smallball.
• Four-Wall 60x30 (GAA): 30 by 60 feet, front wall 27 feet; live surfaces: front, back, left, right; usual ball: Softball.
• Modes: singles (2 players), doubles (4 players), cutthroat (3 players). Cutthroat is a practice game, not an official tournament game.
• Skill tiers for the AI players: A (elite), B (solid), C (beginner). Play styles: all-rounder, power, control, retriever, server.
• Scoring: side-out (only the server scores) or rally (every rally scores).

Venues and times of day

14 venues give a court its look and sound: a park, a gym, a rooftop or an arena. A venue never changes how the ball plays. Each venue supports one or more times of day, and the match menu lets you choose among them.

• Championship Arena: three-wall, four-wall; times of day: night.
• Three-Wall Stadium: three-wall; times of day: night.
• 60x30 Stadium: sixty-thirty; times of day: night.
• Courtside: one-wall; times of day: night.
• Coney Island Boardwalk: one-wall; times of day: day, dusk.
• West 4th St: one-wall; times of day: day, night.
• Bronx Schoolyard: one-wall; times of day: day, dusk, night.
• Brooklyn Bridge Park: one-wall; times of day: dusk, night.
• Queens Rec Center: four-wall; times of day: day.
• School Gymnasium: four-wall, sixty-thirty; times of day: day.
• YMCA Court: three-wall, four-wall; times of day: day.
• Rooftop: one-wall; times of day: day, dusk, night.
• Venice-style Beach Court: three-wall; times of day: day, dusk.
• Blacklight Club: one-wall, three-wall, four-wall, sixty-thirty; times of day: night.

Ways to play

• Career (the menu calls it Tournament Play): you start at rank C. Winning a title moves you to B, and a sustained high rating with a good win rate moves you to A. Tournaments rotate through all four courts.
• Park Play: a quick game at the park.
• City Tour: beat 10 champions, one per stop, each on their own court and venue.
• Practice: solo practice, a tutorial and 5 skills drills (bottom-board kills, corner accuracy, ceiling balls, corner pinches, move your opponent), each scored with bronze, silver and gold medals. An Intro picks your controls and teaches the basics.
• Spectate: watch AI players play a match, and copy a link to the exact match. See Play links.
• Referee Training: see below.
• Progress is saved on your own device.

Controls and assists

Pick one control scheme and only that scheme is listened to, so a stray touch or a pad left on the sofa does nothing. Keys can be remapped.

• Keyboard & mouse: Move with WASD, aim with the mouse, hold click for power.
• Controller: Left stick moves, right stick aims, triggers strike with that hand.
• On-screen stick: A thumbstick to move and buttons to hit, both on the glass.
• Tilt to move: Tilt the phone to move, tap the wall to aim, buttons to hit.
• Camera (move your body): Stand back from the camera and play with your own footwork and swing.
• A WebXR headset can be used where the browser offers it (an Enter VR button appears).
• Three assist levels, set in Settings or the match menu: Casual: the game moves you to the ball and forgives timing. New players start here. Standard: a little help with timing and reach. Pro: no help, the classic feel.

Characters, the Locker Room and the roster

My Characters (the Locker Room) is a library of up to 50 characters you build and save: body, skin, hair, face, clothes, gloves, headwear and more. A character can be shared as a link, and anyone who opens the link can preview it and save it to their own library. The roster is a set of 166 ready-made characters, each with a short bio and a signature emote, that can be added to your library or named in a watch link.

The Pro Shop

The Pro Shop holds outfits, gloves, headwear, bling, emotes, dances, celebrations, protests, voices and banners. Every item is free to wear.

Emotes, dances and protests

Characters can play emotes, dances and celebrations from an emote wheel. They play in dead-ball time only, never during a live rally. Protests are emotes that appeal a call, as theatre: they are upper-body animations that stay in place with no contact, they are limited by a time window and a rate limit, and they never change the match.

Referee training

• Questions: an endless flow of referee questions with the answer and the rule behind each one. The site holds 983 questions in 22 topics.
• Written exams: 4 exams, one for each rulebook (one-wall, four-wall; three-wall uses the four-wall questions) at levels 1 and 3.
• Study guide: the referee study topics.
• Officiating: referee a live singles match between two AI players and make the calls (point, side-out, fault, short, long, foot fault, screen, hinder, avoidable, two bounces, skip, timeout, play ball).
• Voice calls: say the call out loud where the browser has speech recognition. On-screen buttons work everywhere.
• Direct links to all of these are on Play links.

Rules, terms, graph and search

• The current USHA one-wall and four-wall rulebooks, rule by rule, with every earlier rulebook edition: Browse the rulebooks.
• 80 terms, each with its own page: Terms. The same terms and rules as an interactive map: Graph.
• Search across terms, rules, the guide and referee questions: Find.
• How to play each court well: Player guide.
• Every page also has a plain-text markdown copy: add .md to the address, or see llms.txt.

Common questions

• Is it free? Yes. The game and the site are free to use.
• Is there a sign-up? No. Progress and settings are kept on your own device.
• What does it run on? A web browser: nothing is installed. You can play with a keyboard and mouse, a game controller, a touch screen, a tilting phone, your own body through the camera, or a WebXR headset.
• Is it accessible? It has remappable keys and a one-handed preset, three assist levels that do part of the moving and timing, a high-contrast team colour option that works for colour-blind players, a reduced-motion setting, a seated camera mode that uses the arms only, and on-screen buttons as well as voice for referee calls.