How to play Grindzone: controls, modes and your first match

Grindzone is a free speedball paintball shooter that runs in your browser. One paintball hit takes you out, the field is 23 inflatable bunkers, and you play in a room with friends, against bots, or both. This guide covers making a room, every control, how paint and movement work, what the HUD tells you, and what to do at the breakout.

What is Grindzone?

Grindzone is a 3D speedball game played from over your right shoulder. Two teams start at stations on opposite ends of a 48 by 36 field, sprint for cover when the buzzer goes, and trade paint around inflatable bunkers, with a crowd in the stands and pine forest around the field. There are four modes: Elimination, Center Flag, Team Deathmatch and Free For All. It runs on desktop and phone, with no download. You can play it here and see screenshots on the Grindzone game page.

How do you start a match in Grindzone?

Type a name, pick a mode, and press STEP ON THE FIELD. The lobby sits over a live view of the field, and the whole setup takes a few seconds.

1. Name. Up to 14 characters. If you leave it blank you play as "Player".
2. Room code. Leave it blank and the game makes a new four-character room for you. The code shows in the top right corner during play, so read it out to your friends. To join a friend, type their code (letters and numbers, up to 8).
3. Solo practice. Tick "Practice solo against bots" to skip rooms entirely. It works offline.
4. Game mode. Pick one of the four. In a shared room, the host's pick is the one that counts.
5. Bots per side. A slider from 0 to 6, set to 4 by default. Again, the host's setting is used.
6. Click to aim. Once you are on the field, click once so the game captures your mouse. Press Esc any time to free it.

The first person in a room is the host. The host's mode, bot count and banner text are what everyone plays with. If the host leaves, the player who has been in the room longest takes over, and the game tells them "YOU ARE HOST". Players are split onto red and blue in the order they joined, alternating, so friends who join one after another end up on opposite teams.

How do bots fill the teams?

Bots top up each team to the bots-per-side number after counting the humans on it. With the default of 4 and four friends in the room, each team gets two humans and two bots. Set the slider to 0 for humans only.

Free For All works a little differently: bots fill the field to one less than twice the setting. The default of 4 gives you seven players in all, including you.

What are the controls in Grindzone?

Grindzone uses standard shooter keys plus lean, crouch, prone and slide. Here is every control, with the phone version next to it.

How does movement work?

You walk at a steady pace, sprint faster, and everything else trades speed for cover. These are the exact multipliers in the game:

• Sprint is 35% faster than walking. It only works while you move forward with W and are not aiming down the marker.
• Aiming down drops you to 70% speed. Crouching drops you to 55%. Prone drops you to about a quarter.
• Carrying the flag in Center Flag slows you to 90%.
• Slide by pressing C while you sprint. It lasts 0.8 seconds, starts at about twice walking speed and slows down as it goes. You keep a crouched body the whole time. After a slide there is a 0.7 second wait before the next one.
• Space jumps. If you are prone, Space stands you up instead.
• You cannot lean while prone.

How does shooting work in Grindzone?

Your marker fires a paintball about every 0.09 seconds while you hold the trigger, so roughly 11 balls a second. Any paintball that touches an opponent takes them out. There is no health bar and no armor.

• Your hopper holds 200 balls. You also carry 4 pods of 140 each.
• Press R to load a pod. It takes 1.4 seconds, and the hopper never goes above 200, so loading a pod at 150 wastes most of it. Firing on an empty hopper starts a reload by itself.
• You get a full hopper and four pods every time a new point starts or you respawn.
• Paintballs travel fast but drop over distance, so aim a little high on long shots.
• Holding right click tightens your spread to about a third of hip fire and zooms the view in.
• There is no friendly fire in team modes. Your paint passes through teammates, and theirs passes through you.

What does the HUD show?

• Top center: the score, plus either the clock (Team Deathmatch and Free For All) or the point number and target, such as "first to 5".
• Top left: your team, how many players on each side are still standing, and where the flag is in Center Flag.
• Top right: the room code and your eliminations this match.
• Right side: the feed of who hit whom.
• Bottom left: balls in your hopper out of 200, pods left, and your stance (LEAN LEFT, CROUCHED, PRONE, SLIDE).
• Bottom right: a minimap with every bunker, your teammates and the flag. In Free For All it shows every player still in.
• A red arc near the crosshair points to where the shot that hit you came from.

What are the four game modes?

Two modes are played in points and two are played against a five-minute clock. The full rules and how to win each one are in Grindzone modes explained.

What happens at the breakout?

Every point starts with both teams frozen at their start stations while a countdown runs: READY, then 3, 2, 1. The first point is labeled BREAKOUT and later ones show the point number. When the buzzer sounds you can move and shoot. Nobody can move or fire during the countdown, so use it to turn toward the bunker you want.

• Pick your first bunker before the buzzer. The field layout is the same every point and every match, only the bunker colors change.
• Sprint straight at it and slide the last few meters instead of stopping in the open.
• Once you are in, crouch or lean before you look for a shot.

For the full breakout plan, bunker heights and how bots play, read Grindzone tips.

What happens when you get hit?

You are out the moment a ball touches you. Your player is painted in the shooter's color, the ref on the sideline points at you, and the screen shows HIT.

• Elimination: you sit out the rest of the point. The camera follows a living teammate, and clicking switches to the next one.
• Center Flag, Team Deathmatch, Free For All: a timer counts you back in. Team players return at their own station. In Free For All you come back at a random open spot.
• When a point ends, the camera lifts into a slow orbit over the field for 4 seconds, then the next countdown starts.

Can you customize your player and the game?

Yes. Everything below is in the lobby and is saved in your browser.

• Your look: helmet color, marker color and a number from 0 to 99. Your jersey color only shows in Free For All, since team modes put everyone in red or blue.
• Banner text: up to 18 characters printed on the netting. Only the host's text shows in a shared room.
• Graphics: Ultra, High, Medium or Low. Phones start on Low.
• Time of day: Midday, Golden hour, or Night under the lights.
• Weather: Clear, Overcast or Rain.
• Motion blur: off by default. Tick the box to turn it on. It only applies on High and Ultra.
• Mouse sensitivity (3 to 30) and sound volume (0 to 10).

Time of day and weather are your own view. Each player sees the setting they picked, and neither one changes how paint flies or how fast anyone moves.

What stats does Grindzone save?

The lobby shows four numbers that build up across every match you play on that browser: eliminations, hits taken, matches won, and hit rate, which is your eliminations divided by the balls you have fired. They are stored on your device, not on an account.

Frequently asked questions