Patang Kite Fight

Patang Kite Fight — how to play and tips

Patang Kite Fight is a free browser game inspired by one of India's most loved festival traditions: the kite battles of Makar Sankranti, Uttarayan, Lohri, Pongal and Basant. On those days the sky over rooftops from Gujarat and Rajasthan to Delhi, Punjab, Maharashtra and Bengal fills with colorful patang, and the whole point is to cut your rival's string and shout "वो काटा!" (Woh Kata, or "Kai Po Che" in Gujarati). This game brings that rooftop excitement to your phone, with no download, no sign-up and simple one-finger controls.

How to play

Drag your finger anywhere on the sky to fly your red patang. The kite follows your finger smoothly and sits just above it, so your hand never covers the action; on a computer you can use the mouse or the arrow keys and WASD. Rival kites sail in from both sides of the screen with their strings stretching down to the rooftops. Touch a colorful kite with your own and you cut it: the rival kite spins and falls, you score points, and the words "वो काटा!" pop up. Play continues until you lose all three lives, which are shown as hearts at the top.

The different kites

Colorful kites are worth 10 points each and are the bread and butter of your score. Golden kites are rarer and worth 30. Black manjha kites are the danger: their strings are coated with sharp thread, and if you touch one it cuts your string and you lose a life. A pulsing red ring around a black kite warns you to keep away. After a hit you get a short moment of protection, shown by a blinking kite, so you can fly out of trouble.

Combos and the chikki power-up

Cut kites in quick succession and your combo multiplier climbs up to x5, so a quick chain of cuts is worth far more than the same kites cut slowly. A combo ends if two and a half seconds pass without a cut, and it also resets when you lose a life. Now and then a chikki floats down from the top of the screen, a nod to the peanut and sesame sweets everyone eats on Sankranti. Catch it for six seconds of power: your kite glows, its cutting range grows and you can even cut black manjha kites for bonus points.

Tips and strategy

Fly high early in a run; the kites that appear at the top of the sky have the most room to move and give you time to line up a cut. Approach a rival kite from the side rather than straight on, because its wobble up and down makes head-on touches easy to mistime. Keep an eye on the black kites first and decide your path around them before you chase anything colorful. When a combo is running, stay close to the middle of the screen so that the next kite entering from either side is only a short flick away. Save your chikki for a crowded sky, when several kites are on screen at once, and use the extra reach to chain a big combo. As your score rises the kites fly faster and more black kites appear, so a calm, smooth hand beats frantic swiping.

Share your score with friends

Kite flying has always been a social competition, so when your game ends you can send your score straight to WhatsApp or any other app with the share button, and challenge friends and family to beat the number of kites you cut. The game remembers your best score in your browser, and it is especially fun to play around Makar Sankranti in January, when everyone is already talking about patang.

Playing on mobile and desktop

The playfield scales to any screen size, the controls need only one finger, and everything runs inside your browser, so there is nothing to install. The text uses your device's fonts, so Hindi words appear automatically on any modern phone or computer.