Home / How to Play & FAQ
How to play, and answers to the common questions
Drone Warz turns your camera into a gun sight. Drones circle you in real airspace, and you shoot them down by physically aiming your device at them. This page covers the scoring, the five airframes, multiplayer, and the handful of things that commonly go wrong.
Last updated 18 August 2026
The basics
Tap Play Now and the camera becomes your sight. Drones are positioned around you in a full circle of airspace, so a target behind you is genuinely behind you — turn round and it comes into view. Hold one inside the centre reticle and fire.
Three things decide how well you do: how precisely you centre the target, how far away it is, and which airframe you hit. All three multiply together, so a careful distant shot is worth many times a close, sloppy one.
Start with the practice range. It introduces one drone type at a time, has no clock and unlimited ammunition, and points out where everything on the display is.
Scoring and the three zones
Every drone carries three concentric scoring zones. Where your crosshair sits when you fire decides which one you hit.
| Zone | Base points | What it is |
|---|---|---|
| Outer frame | 1 | The widest dashed ring — anywhere on the airframe |
| Hull | 5 | The orange ring around the drone's body |
| Core | 10 | The small red centre, barely wider than the crosshair |
Two multipliers then apply. Range scales the payout from 0.5× at point-blank up to 2× at fifty metres, so walking up to a drone is worth less than taking it at distance. Airframe applies each drone type's own multiplier on top.
A core hit also earns a selector lock. Spend it by tapping any drone on screen: the sight takes that target itself, tracks it for a second and fires. It is the fastest way to clear something awkward, and a core hit with the lock earns the next one straight back.
On Easy the zone rings are drawn on every drone so you can see what you are aiming at. On Hard they are hidden and you judge by eye. On Extreme you must hold a target for a full second until it locks before a shot counts at all, and anything but a core hit only wounds — two clean locks to finish one drone.
The five drone types
Each airframe flies differently and is worth a different multiplier. You choose which types appear in your loadout, either one or several at once.
| Airframe | Behaviour | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Interceptor | Steady, armoured quadcopter | The standard target and the best one to learn on |
| Stalker | Fast delta-wing | Needs leading — aim slightly ahead of it |
| Sentry | Slow armoured orbital | Often sits at long range, so worth magnifying |
| Wasp | Light and erratic | Quick and unpredictable, worth the least |
| Bastion | Heavy lenticular disc | Wide and slow, worth the most |
Distant drones shrink genuinely — a target at fifty metres is only a few pixels across. Use zoom to magnify before taking a long shot; it enlarges the drone as well as the spacing, so the scoring zones become reachable.
The practice range
The practice range is a five-stage guided tour with no timer, unlimited ammunition and no way to fail. Each stage introduces one airframe and one skill, with an instruction on screen explaining what to do and pointing out the part of the display it concerns.
- Interceptor — holds station completely still, so you can learn the scoring zones.
- Stalker — under power, so you learn to track a moving target.
- Sentry — parked at long range, so you learn to zoom.
- Wasp — quick and erratic, while you watch the magazine drain.
- Bastion — the heavy, and a chance to earn a selector lock on the core.
After the fifth stage the range stays open with free targets for as long as you want.
Multiplayer and game codes
Drone Warz supports two to four teams (red, blue, green, yellow — last team with drones flying wins) or up to twelve individual players with up to five drones each, last player standing.
Hosting
- Tap Host a Game and set the rules: how many sides, how many drones each, the airspace arc, and which airframes appear.
- You are given a six-character code. Read it out or share the QR code.
- Type a callsign and press Enter Game to join your own waiting room.
- When everyone is in, press Start.
Joining
Tap Join with Code, type the six characters, pick a side and enter a callsign, then press Enter Game. In a two-side game your side is assigned automatically, since the host holds the other one. Wait in the waiting room until the host starts.
The code is not a lookup key — it contains the match. Mode, number of sides, drones each, airspace arc, airframe selection and the airspace layout are all packed into those six characters, which is why every device builds the same sky from it.
Your own kit stays yours. Magazine size, fire mode, recoil, range rings and sound are personal settings and do not change to match the host.
Shooting your own side
Anyone may shoot any drone, including their own. Doing so costs you that drone's points and leaves your side one drone lighter — so it hurts twice. Your own drones are ringed in your colour and marked HOLD.
Playing on a computer
A desktop has no motion sensors, so the mouse and keyboard drive the sight and the game plays over an artificial terrain rather than a camera feed.
| Input | Action |
|---|---|
| Mouse drag | Swing the sight |
| Pointer at a screen edge | Keep swinging in that direction — all four edges |
| Click, or hold for auto | Fire |
| Scroll wheel | Zoom in and out |
| W A S D or arrow keys | Swing the sight |
| Space | Fire — hold in semi or full auto |
| Up / down arrows | Zoom, and 0 resets to 1× |
| R / F | Reload / change fire mode |
Desktop play also shows the Brooks Command Net, a running radio log of what is happening in the round — target callouts, your kills, other players' kills and the round result.
Installing it on your phone
Drone Warz can be installed to your home screen and then opens full-screen like an app, with the camera and motion sensors working exactly as they do in the browser.
- iPhone or iPad: open the site in Safari, tap the Share button, then Add to Home Screen.
- Android: open the browser menu and choose Install app or Add to home screen.
There is nothing to download from an app store and no installer to run — it is the same web page, saved as an icon.
Troubleshooting
The camera does not turn on
Three causes account for almost every case:
- Not on HTTPS. Browsers refuse camera access on an insecure connection. The address must begin
https://. Opening the file directly from your device's storage will not work either. - An in-app browser. Tapping a link inside Messages, WhatsApp, Instagram or Facebook opens a cut-down browser that blocks camera and sensor access. Use the share menu and choose Open in Safari or Open in Chrome.
- Permission declined. If you dismissed the prompt, the browser remembers. Re-enable the camera for this site in your browser's site settings, then reload.
Press Run System Check on the start screen — it reports the camera, motion sensors, connection security and frame rate separately, so you can see which one is failing. If you would rather not use the camera at all, switch the backdrop to Black.
It says there is no sensor signal
On iPhone and iPad, motion access is a separate permission from the camera. Tapping deploy should raise an "Allow Motion & Orientation Access?" prompt — both need accepting. If you declined it, the setting is under Settings → Safari → Motion & Orientation Access.
Desktop computers have no motion sensors at all, which is expected rather than a fault; the mouse and keyboard take over.
Where sensors are unavailable, you can still play by dragging the screen to aim.
The aim drifts, or feels jittery
Press Recalibrate while pointing at where you want the centre of the airspace to be. This re-centres the sight on your current heading and clears accumulated drift.
Phone compasses drift slowly by nature, particularly indoors or near anything magnetic. If it drifts persistently, try moving away from speakers, laptops and metal furniture.
If aiming feels twitchy at high magnification, that is expected — the sight deliberately becomes finer as you zoom. Press 0 or the reset control to return to 1×.
My settings reset every time I open the game
Settings are stored in your browser's local storage. They will not persist if you are in a private or incognito window, if your browser is set to clear site data on close, or if you have blocked storage for this site. Using the installed home-screen version keeps them reliably.
Everyone got a different result in the same multiplayer game
Whether results are shared depends on how the site is hosted. With the multiplayer relay in place, kills, the roster and the winner are shared, and the waiting room shows a live connection badge with everyone who has joined.
Without it, each device runs its own copy of the same airspace: the sky is identical because the code determines it, but hits register only on the device that fired them. In that case compare final scores to settle the match. The waiting room tells you which mode you are in.
The game runs slowly or the picture stutters
Close other tabs and applications, especially anything else using the camera. Reducing the number of drones per side and choosing a single airframe both lighten the load. On older phones the black backdrop is noticeably cheaper to draw than the live camera feed.
Privacy and ads
Is anything recorded through my camera?
No. The camera feed is displayed to you and analysed on your own device to help steady the aim. Nothing is recorded, saved or transmitted — no frames, no stills, nothing derived from them. The full detail is in the privacy policy.
Do I need an account?
No. There is no sign-up, no email address and no password. Your settings and scores live in your own browser. A callsign in multiplayer is just a label you choose for that match.
Why am I asked about ads, and can I change my answer?
Advertising pays for the hosting, and you choose whether it may use your data. Until you answer, all advertising storage stays switched off. Declining still shows ads, just not personalised ones.
You can change your mind at any time using Privacy & Ad Settings on the start screen.
Is it free, and are there purchases?
It is free, and there is nothing to buy — no purchases, no subscriptions, no paid upgrades, no ad-free tier.