PENDARSMART.COM

New · 3D tank combat · machines only

Steel
Front.

The machines have taken the countryside, and they drive tanks. You drive one too. Read the ground, point your thickest armour at the danger, and find the thin plates on theirs. Four maps, twelve missions, four bosses, and a survival mode for each map.

Steel Front: a green tank on a dirt road between trees, firing at a dark machine tank with red lights, with a burning wreck nearby

Press play

The game opens full-screen on this page. It is a mouse-and-keyboard game first: click the game and the mouse aims. It also has touch controls for tablets and phones. If it is slow, it switches itself to Low graphics. New visitors first choose Home or School and accept the Rules, Terms and Privacy Policy.

Controls

  • W and S: drive forward and back. A and D: turn the tank.
  • Mouse: look around. The turret turns to follow, at its own speed. Click: fire.
  • Right click or Z: the gun sight. The mouse wheel zooms in and out.
  • 1 and 2: AP or HE shells. Space: the machine gun. F: a repair kit. G: a smoke screen in front of you. Machines cannot see through it for about 14 seconds.
  • Esc or P: pause. Mouse speed and graphics are in the pause menu.
  • Touch: left thumb drives, right thumb aims. Fire, Zoom, MG, shell type, Fix and Smoke are on the right.

How armour works

  • Every tank is thickest at the front, thinner on the sides and thinnest at the back. The turret front is the thickest of all.
  • A shell that hits a plate at a slant has more metal to get through. Hit at a steep enough slant and it ricochets off.
  • If your shell goes through, the text says Penetrated. If not, it says Did not go through. Try another side.
  • Turn your own hull about 30 degrees to the enemy and their shots bounce more often.
  • HE shells go through less, but they hurt everything near the blast, dent the ground and knock buildings down. You have a few per mission.
  • A hit on the back can set the engine on fire. A hit low on the side can break a track for a few seconds. F fixes both.

Aiming

  • The circle shows where your gun would hit right now, and how wide your shots spread. It turns red over a machine.
  • Moving and turning make the circle wider. Stop for a moment and it shrinks.
  • Shells drop over distance. The gun lifts by itself to reach the spot you are looking at.
  • The ring around the circle fills up as you reload.
  • Machines your side has seen show up with a red marker, a name and a health bar, and on the map in the corner.

Your tanks

  • Hound: light and quick. A small gun, so get round to the sides and the back.
  • Ranger: the all-rounder. Good gun, fair armour, fair speed.
  • Lancer: a tank hunter with a huge gun and no turret. Turn the whole tank to aim.
  • Bastion: slow and heavy. The front shrugs off most shots. Point it at trouble.

Credits from missions buy tanks, upgrades (gun, armour, engine, loader) and paint in the Garage. Harder difficulty pays more.

The machines

  • Scout: fast and thin. Circles you.
  • Brawler: a middle tank that comes at you and angles its hull.
  • Goliath: a heavy. Its front is thicker than a Hound's gun can pierce. Go for the sides.
  • Stalker: a hunter with no turret. Hangs far back and hits very hard.
  • Mortar crawler: lobs shells from far away. A red ring on the ground shows where. Leave the ring.
  • Pillbox: a concrete bunker. HE knocks it out faster.
  • Gunship: flies and fires rockets. Your machine gun reaches it better than your cannon.

Maps and missions

  • Greenfield: farms, villages and a lake. Boss: Goliath Prime, which charges.
  • Dust Basin: a hot basin ringed by mesas. Boss: the Sky Fortress, a flying gun platform.
  • Frost Line: a snowy pass full of pines. Boss: the Behemoth, with two guns.
  • Ruin City: broken streets at sunset. Boss: The Citadel, which calls for help and fires rocket barrages.

Missions are not all the same. Some are a straight fight. In others you take and hold a village, keep a supply truck alive, or keep a depot standing until the clock runs out. Clear a map's first mission to open its Survival mode.

Tips

  • Hills are cover. Stop just behind a crest so only your turret shows.
  • Heavy tanks turn slowly. Drive round them.
  • Buildings stop shells until they fall down. Trees do not.
  • Your tank repairs itself slowly after about ten seconds without being hit.
  • Wrecks sometimes drop crates: green repairs, yellow is HE shells, blue is points.

How it is made

Steel Front has no game engine. It uses its own small 3D renderer, grown out of the one in Dead Orbit, with shadows from the sun added.

  • Each map is a grid of heights. Blasts dig real craters into it.
  • Every tank and machine is made from boxes, wedges and cylinders, in three parts so the turret can turn and the gun can lift.
  • The ground, metal, wall and tree textures, and the skies, were made by a script from noise, not from photos. On High graphics they load once, about 5 MB.
  • The engine rumble, the guns and the music are made by code.
  • Your progress is saved on this device only. Nothing is sent anywhere.