Missile Interceptor
Time your interceptor to stop the missiles raining on your city
How to Play
Missiles fall faster, more often, and at sharper angles as you go. How many can you block?
What is the Missile Interceptor Test?
The missile interceptor test puts you in charge of a city's last line of defense, a single interceptor battery fixed on an angled rail. Missiles streak down from the sky, and because your launch angle never changes, the only decision is when to fire. You read each missile's trajectory, find where it crosses the interceptor's path, and launch early enough that both arrive at that point together. Sports scientists call the timing half of this skill coincidence-anticipation timing, and the angled geometry adds a layer of trajectory extrapolation on top.
What's a good score?
| Rating | Score | Percentile |
|---|---|---|
| Master Interceptor | 20+ clean intercepts | Top 1% |
| Excellent | 13 to 19 clean intercepts | Top 10% |
| Above Average | 8 to 12 clean intercepts | Top 30% |
| Average | 4 to 7 clean intercepts | Top 50% |
| Below Average | Under 4 clean intercepts | Bottom 50% |
Frequently asked questions
What is a good missile interceptor score?
Your percentile rating is based on clean intercepts, which means missiles blocked multiplied by your average overlap. Twelve interceptions at 75% precision count as nine clean intercepts, so accuracy matters as much as volume. Four to seven clean intercepts is typical. Eight puts you in the top 30%, thirteen in the top 10%, and twenty or more in the top 1%.
What does the overlap percentage mean?
It measures where along the missile's body your interceptor connected. Striking dead center scores 100%, while barely clipping the nose or tail scores 1%. Because both objects are moving, the overlap is really a measure of timing error. Every fraction of a second you fire early or late shifts the impact point along the missile, and your precision score is the average overlap across every missile you block.
What cognitive skills does this game test?
Two skills work together here. Coincidence-anticipation timing is the ability to launch an action so it coincides with a moving object's arrival, the same skill a batter uses to meet a pitch. Trajectory extrapolation is the spatial side, projecting two converging paths forward to find their intersection. Driving researchers study the same combination in gap judgment, deciding whether you can pull out before an oncoming car arrives.
Why is there a cooldown between shots?
The reload pause is what turns the game into a timing test rather than a clicking test. If you could fire continuously, you could hose the sky and hit missiles by accident. Because each shot locks the launcher for about a second, a wasted interceptor usually means the missile gets through, so you are pushed to compute the interception point and commit to one well-timed launch.
How do I get better at intercepting?
Watch the missile's trail rather than its nose. The trail shows the trajectory, and extending it mentally to the interceptor's dashed rail gives you the crossing point. Then fire while the missile is still short of that point, since your interceptor needs travel time too. Missiles crossing low near the launcher need only a small lead, while high crossings on the far side need the longest one.
What are the curved missiles?
The 15th missile of every run opens a new phase. From that point some missiles fly curved trajectories instead of straight lines, bowing in from the top or sweeping in low from the sides of the screen. Because a bend cannot be extrapolated from the smoke trail alone, curved missiles show their remaining route as a dotted line. Read where that dotted path crosses your rail and time the shot the same way, and they grow more frequent the deeper you survive.