Cindral

Fly the line. Break the Cinder fleet.

Play Cindral — free, in your browser

A PS1-style arcade space-combat sim that runs entirely in your browser. Fly a lone fighter through a branching nine-mission campaign — dogfight Cinder raiders, escort convoys to the jump gate, recover salvage with a grappling tether, hold a relay station, and tear down capital ships subsystem by subsystem. Three enemy airframes that each want something different from you, lock-on missiles, decoy flares, a refit you spend between operations, a spherical radar with off-screen threat arrows, and deadly gravity wells. Free to play on desktop or mobile, no download.

Controls

• Arrow keys — Pitch / yaw
• A/D — Roll · W/S — Throttle · Shift — Afterburner
• Space — Lasers · M — Missile · F — Flares
• T — Target · G — Grapple · C — Scan
• V — Cockpit / chase view · Esc — Menu
• Virtual joystick — Steer (pitch / yaw)
• ⟲ ⟳ buttons (by the stick) — Roll / bank
• FIRE / MSL / FLR — Lasers / missile / flares
• TGT — Target · BOOST — Afterburner
• SCAN / GRAB — contextual (asteroids & pods)
• VIEW — Cockpit / chase toggle

How to Play Cindral

Steer with the arrow keys and manage throttle with W/S — Shift kicks in the afterburner. Tap V to swap between the chase camera and the cockpit.

Keep an enemy fighter in your forward cone to auto-lock it, then fire lasers (Space) or a homing missile (M). Watch the radar and the screen-edge arrows for threats out of view.

When a missile is tracking you, drop flares (F) to break the lock. Enemy fighters will juke and flare your missiles right back.

Hit T to manually target a capital ship’s subsystem (or an asteroid / cargo pod), then knock out every engine, turret and bridge to bring the ship down.

Each mission has its own objective — clear a picket, escort a freighter, recover a pod with the grapple (G), or hold a relay station. Nine operations in all: six on the winning line, three recovery ops you only see if you lose.

A failed mission does not end the run. The war reroutes you to a recovery op — win it and you rejoin the campaign further down the line; lose it and the campaign is over.

Stay clear of planets and moons — drift into a gravity well and your fighter is gone.

Cindral Strategy Guide

1. Auto-lock only grabs fighters — use it for dogfights and save manual target (T) for capital subsystems and salvage.
2. Missiles are scarce. Spend them on capital subsystems and tough targets, not fighters you can chip down with lasers.
3. Flares win missile duels — pop them late, just as the warning peaks, to seduce the incoming missile.
4. On defend and escort runs, resist the urge to chase — intercept the fighters diving on your station or convoy instead. Shooting an attacker pulls its aggression onto you, which is how you keep a convoy alive.
5. In the wreck fields — Scrapline, Ember Field — the drifting iron is cover. Put a rock between you and a shooter, and remember Ember Field has two moons pulling at the edges of the fight.
6. The gravity warning is your last call. Pull away the instant it flashes; the pull only gets stronger.
7. A flawless run — no mission losses across the whole campaign — earns the Ace ending.

Questions & Answers

What is Cindral?

Cindral is a free browser-based PS1-style arcade space-combat sim. You fly a single fighter through a branching campaign of missions — dogfighting raiders, escorting convoys to a jump gate, recovering salvage with a grappling tether, defending a relay station, and tearing down capital ships subsystem by subsystem.

Is Cindral free?

Yes, Cindral is completely free to play in your browser. No download, no signup, no paywall.

How do you play Cindral?

Steer with the arrow keys, manage throttle with W/S, and afterburn with Shift. Keep an enemy in your forward cone to auto-lock it, then fire lasers (Space) or a homing missile (M). Drop flares (F) to break incoming missile locks, manually target capital subsystems with T, and complete each mission’s objective to advance the branching campaign.

Does Cindral work on mobile?

Yes. Cindral has full touch controls — a virtual joystick to steer plus on-screen buttons for fire, missile, flares, target, boost, and the cockpit/chase view toggle.

How many missions does Cindral have?

Nine. Six sit on the winning line — Picket Line, Convoy Run, Salvage, Ember Field, Breakwater and Hammerfall — and three more are recovery operations you only fly if you lose a mission. Failing does not end the run: the campaign reroutes you to a recovery op, and winning that puts you back on the line further down. Losing a recovery op is what ends the campaign.

What happens if you fly into a planet?

Planets and moons are gravity wells. If you drift too close an amber gravity warning flashes and your fighter is pulled in; cross the surface and you are destroyed. Pull away the moment the warning appears.

If you like Cindral

• Mirecut — Also in PS1-style games. Everybody in this town is lying. One of them about the murder.
• County Line — Also in Retro arcade. Backroads to Main Street. Hold the line.
• Hook Echo — Also in PS1-style games. Fix the van. Beat the funnel.
• Tranquility — Also in PS1-style games. Suit up. Cycle the airlock. Get off the rock.

Also in: Free 3D Browser Games (WebGL, No Download), Free PS1-Style Browser Games (PSX Aesthetic, Vertex Snap, Low-Poly Horror), Free Retro Arcade Games in Your Browser (16-bit, Pixel Art, No Download) · All collections

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