ANSWER BEAM — U.S. States Edition

A panel shaped like one of the 50 states comes spinning toward the bridge of your starship. Catch the moment it faces you, name the state (type it, or tap one of four choices) and fire! A correct answer blasts the panel to pieces; the faster you answer, the higher the score. Shoot it down before it hits the bridge.

Every panel carries a gold star at the state capital, so even the look-alike rectangular states (Colorado, Wyoming, Kansas...) can be told apart, and you pick up the capitals along the way.

THREE MODES

- Arcade: type the answer. Score attack; later stages spin faster and tumble on wilder axes

- 4 Choices: pick one of four and fire, but only two tries per panel and misses cost points. Playable by touch alone

- Learning: no damage, slower panels. Staged hints (region, first letter, capital), a U.S. map highlight and a fun fact after every panel

LEARNING FEATURES

- Results screen with a review list of the states you missed or that hit you

- An Atlas that fills in as you shoot down states (all 50, with abbreviation, capital and trivia)

CONTROLS

- Type + Enter: answer (full name or 2-letter postal code; "N Carolina" style short forms work too)

- Keys 1-4 or tap: pick a choice

- Enter: launch Arcade from the title / play again from the results

- Slider (bottom left): volume, click the speaker icon to mute

Runs in any modern browser. No microphone, no network calls, no analytics. Slow machines switch to a lighter rendering mode automatically.

CREDITS

Map data: U.S. Census Bureau, Cartographic Boundary Files (2017), public domain; packaged as TopoJSON by us-atlas (Mike Bostock, ISC License)

Music: created with MiniMax-Music3

Sound effects: Kenney "Sci-Fi Sounds" / "Impact Sounds" (CC0 1.0)

Libraries: Three.js and others (see the bundled THIRD-PARTY-NOTICES.txt)