NEWArcade
Return Stroke
Drop charge through a thundercloud's ice crystals. Land on a lightning rod and the bolt climbs back up your path, firing every peg again.
What it is
drop it, strike back
Return Stroke is a plinko roguelike set inside a thunderstorm crossing a sleeping coast, one hour a round from 22:00 to dawn. You pick where to drop, and the ball falls through ten rows of ice crystals; every crystal it touches adds Charge, and when the last ball lands its Charge times its Surge is the drop's Thunder. A ball that lands on a rooftop with a lightning rod fires a return stroke: a bolt climbs back up the exact path the ball fell, and every peg on that path fires again, from the bottom up. Each hour gives you five drops to reach its quota; between hours you spend Static on twenty-two kinds of peg, from Forks that split the ball to Echoes that run a stroke twice, and on more rods, and a peg you buy again and drop on your own goes up a level. Hours 4 and 8 bring a front that changes one rule for the hour. Reaching dawn opens new storms, each starting from its own pegs, and the next Force for the storm you played, up to Force 12; the daily storm is the same storm and seed for everyone that day, and counts as a dawn but opens no Force. Miss a quota and the storm blows itself out.
How to play
Controls, then the numbers that matter
A plain crystal gives +5 Charge every time it fires. A drop's Thunder is its Charge times its Surge, and Surge starts at 1.
A stroke fires each peg on the ball's path once, however many times the ball bounced on it, starting at the bottom.
Thunderhead (x1.5) and Diode (x1.25) fire on return strokes only, so put them high on the trunk: a stroke reaches them last, after every Spark below.
Buy a peg you already own and drop it on yours instead of an open socket: it goes up a level, to 3 at most. Its tip says what the next level does, and it sells for half of everything paid into it.
You start with three rods and can own six, at 5, 8 and 11 Static. Each rod pays 1 Static the first time it is struck in an hour.
An hour ends the moment its quota falls, and every drop you didn't need pays 1 Static. Holding Static pays 1 for every 5 held, up to 5.
Each ball fires at most one Relay stroke, so a row of Relays wants a Fork above it.
Hail doubles a ball's Charge and its Sparks, and every Updraft that lifts it doubles that again: three lifts make it x16.
At Force 8 the hours ask 300, 500, 700, 810, 1,700, 3,000, 6,500 and 10,000 Thunder: 01:00 and 05:00 bring fronts, which ask about 15% less. Past dawn the quotas roughly double every hour.
The Hailstorm opens once you clear 01:00, the Freezing Fog once you reach dawn, and the Supercell once you reach dawn with two storms.
Hold the mouse button or the space bar during a drop to watch it at two and a half times the speed.
Trophies
15 trophies
Sign in and the ones you earn light up here and on your account.
The cloud
- A return stroke
- Five strokes in one drop
- Hail at x8
- 24 balls in one drop
- 10,000 Thunder in one drop
- A million in one drop
- A Leyden Jar bank of +10 Surge
- Six rods armed
- A peg at level 3
The night
- Cleared 01:00
- Cleared an hour with a front
- Keep the storm alive all night (hidden until you find it)
- Dawn on the daily storm
- Dawn with all four storms
- Climb the Force all the way (hidden until you find it)
What players say
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From the changelog
What changed
Return Stroke: plinko inside a thundercloud
- Return Stroke is a plinko roguelike. You are a thunderstorm crossing a sleeping coast, and each hour from 22:00 to dawn gives you five drops to reach its quota of Thunder. The ball falls through ten rows of ice crystals, and when it lands on a rooftop with a lightning rod the bolt climbs back up the exact path it fell, firing every peg it touched a second time. Between hours you build the cloud from twenty-two kinds of peg: Forks split the ball, Thunderhead multiplies Surge on every stroke that passes, Echo runs a stroke twice, Prism fires its whole row. Buy a peg you already own and it goes up a level. Miss a quota and the storm blows itself out.
- Hours 4 and 8 bring a front that changes one rule, from a Crosswind that pushes every ball to the right to a Blackout that darkens the middle rods. Four storms start from different pegs, each with five Forces to climb by reaching dawn, and the daily storm is the same storm and seed for everyone that day.
Return Stroke went up on the arcade
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