The yard woke up.
Play Lawn Dart — free, in your browser
Lawn Dart is a free browser-based 16-bit side-scrolling platformer, and the arcade's first. You are a pink plastic flamingo who has been staked in the same back yard for thirty years, and this morning you can move. Your neck does everything: whip it to knock the grubs off the lawn, hook it over a crossbar to swing across gaps nothing could jump, or drive it straight down beak-first to bounce off whatever is underneath you. Your wings are decorative — flapping will slow a fall but it will never lift you, because you are a lawn ornament and lawn ornaments do not fly. Six levels take you out of the yard entirely. A light comes down over the cul-de-sac, and you wake up under the surface of somebody else's planet, in a low-gravity base where the same jump hangs half a second longer and carries a third further. Then you find the hangar. The last two levels are flown, not walked: you steal a ship and thrust it out of the collapsing base and up through the crust, with no brake, no neck, and rock on every side that costs you a heart the moment you touch it. It does not end well, exactly. It ends in a city.
You are a lawn ornament. Everything you can do, you do with your neck.
Tap NECK to whip whatever is in front of you. One swing sweeps a whole arc, so a line of grubs goes down together.
Crossbars light up and grow a ring when you are close enough to hook them. Press NECK while one is lit and you grab it — one button, no aiming. It is the same button you whip with; being in reach of a bar is what changes what it does.
Let go as you come up out of the bottom of a swing. You carry your swing speed plus a boost, and you are fastest through the low point — at the very ends of the arc you are barely moving at all.
Press DOWN and JUMP in mid-air to dive beak-first. You fall faster, and you bounce off whatever you land on — ground, grubs, anything.
A successful beak bounce gives your flap back, so you can chain bounces across a row of grubs without ever touching the floor.
Jumping a second time in mid-air flaps your wings. It caps how fast you fall for a moment; it never gains you height. You are plastic.
Pinks are the little ornaments scattered around the yard. They are worth points and they mark the route the level wants you to take.
Score is 100 per grub, 25 per pink, 1500 for reaching the exit, a time bonus that bleeds away as you go, and 1000 more if you clear a level without being hit.
The campaign runs six levels across three places: the back yard, the alien base under the surface of their planet, and the flight out. Two levels each — the first teaches what is different about the place, the second assumes you learned it.
In the base everything is lower gravity. The same jump reaches the same height but hangs in the air much longer and carries about a third further, so gaps that would kill you at home are routine.
Levels 5 and 6 are flown. You board a ship at the end of level 4 and the whole moveset goes away — no jump, no neck, no ground. The stick thrusts in whatever direction you hold, and nothing stops you when you let go.
The ship is heavy on purpose. It accelerates rather than moves, and it coasts rather than stops, so a gap has to be lined up well before you reach it. Touching rock costs a heart and shoves you off it.
Something is coming down the tunnel behind you in level 5. It gives you a couple of seconds of rumble before it starts moving, and after that the only answer is to be further along than it is.
Your score carries across levels and only banks when you finish one. Dying costs you the level you were on and nothing before it.
Every sound is generated in the browser — there are no audio files. Each place has its own track: the base has no drums at all, and the escape is the only off-world track that gets them back.
Lawn Dart is a free browser-based 16-bit side-scrolling platformer. You play a pink plastic flamingo that has been staked in the same back yard for thirty years and has just started moving. Your neck is your whole moveset — a whip, a grappling hook and a pogo stick. The campaign runs six levels: two in the back yard, two inside an alien base under the surface of their planet, and two flying a stolen saucer out through the crust.
Six levels across three places. The first level of each pair teaches what is different about it and the second assumes you learned it. Your score carries across levels and banks when you finish one, so dying costs you the level you were on and nothing before it.
Yes, Lawn Dart is completely free to play in your browser. No download, no signup, no paywall.
Three ways, all on one button. Tapping NECK whips it in an arc in front of you, which knocks out grubs. Near a crossbar the same button hooks it instead and you swing from it like a pendulum — left and right pump the swing, and jump lets go. Pressing DOWN and JUMP in mid-air drives your beak straight down so you dive faster and bounce off whatever you hit.
It lights up. Every crossbar has a ring hanging under it, and the one within reach glows and pulses — that is the game telling you exactly which one the button will take. There is no aiming, so chaining swings is a question of when you press it rather than where you point.
No, and that is the joke. Pressing jump a second time in mid-air flaps your wings, but flapping only caps how fast you fall for a moment — it never gains you any height. You are a lawn ornament. Use it as a mid-air correction when you have mistimed a jump, not as a second jump.
You stop platforming. The flamingo steals an alien saucer at the end of level 4 and flies it out, first ahead of a tunnel collapsing behind it and then up through the crust toward the surface. The stick thrusts in any direction, there is no brake, and wall-mounted turrets shoot into the corridor — you can shoot back.
The canopy is your health bar. Every wall you clip cracks the glass a little further and the last one fails it, so you can read exactly how close you are by looking at the dome instead of a meter. Five panes, and rock, spikes and turret fire all cost the same one.
You score 100 points per grub, 25 per pink collected, 1500 for reaching a level exit, plus a time bonus that decays as the run goes on and a further 1000 for clearing a level without taking a hit. The leaderboard entry is your CAMPAIGN total across all six levels, not a single level score, so a deep run always beats a good first level.
Yes. On foot the joystick runs and aims, JUMP jumps and flaps, and NECK whips or hooks. In the flying levels the joystick thrusts in any direction and a single FIRE button replaces the rest.
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