Little Master Cricket — Play Free Online

About Little Master Cricket

Little Master Cricket is a batting game by Bennett Foddy, the designer behind QWOP and GIRP. The title screen carries a foddy.net copyright and credits Erin Catto's Box2D physics engine, which drives the batsman's ragdoll body and the flight of the ball. As with Foddy's other games, the challenge comes from the controls: you do not press a button to play a shot, you move the bat yourself.

The scene is a single batsman in whites in front of his stumps, seen side-on, with balls arriving one after another. A tally under the pitch shows your runs and your strike rate.

How to play

Move the mouse to swing the bat. The bat follows the mouse directly instead of playing ready-made shots, so every stroke is one you shape yourself. The game ends when a ball hits the stumps, or when you send the ball into one of the yellow-and-black striped zones, which count as being caught. On phones and tablets you play with touch instead of the mouse.

Scoring zones

The edges of the screen are lined with striped bands, and each band is marked with the runs it is worth. Coloured bands are worth 1, 2, 4 or 6 runs, and the sixes sit high up near the top corners, so a big hit has to be aimed as well as struck. The yellow-and-black bands, marked 0, are where the fielders wait: reach one and you are out.

That gives you the choice the game is built around. You can play safe, blocking balls away from the stumps and taking small scores, or you can slog for the sixes and risk getting caught. The long-term goal is to become world champion and earn the nickname of the Little Master.

Tips

• Your first job is to keep the ball off the stumps. Get the bat between ball and wicket before thinking about runs.
• Watch where the black-and-yellow bands sit before you swing; some are right next to the six zones, so a slightly mistimed hit can end your innings.
• A steady stream of ones and twos keeps the score moving with much less risk than chasing every six.
• Keep an eye on the strike rate under the pitch if you want to score faster, and on the run total if you simply want to last.

If you enjoy wrestling with an awkward body, Foddy's QWOP and GIRP use the same idea of direct, physical control.