Free browser game
A free online spinning-top battle game. Build a top out of three stacked parts, launch it into the bowl, and take the rail round the wall for a knockout worth triple. One hundred and eighty builds, four ways to end a round.
The bowl has a groove running round its upper wall. Stay on the floor and you are safe and slow. Reach the rail at speed, moving along it rather than into it, and your top locks on and accelerates — and everything you do from up there is worth more. That one decision, floor or rail, is the whole game.
The hook
SPIN is fuel. LOCK is structure. Keeping them apart is what makes the build screen a real decision.
SPIN falls the whole time you are out there, and at zero you stop. It is a clock you are always losing. LOCK only falls when something hits you, faster against a high-bite ring, and at zero your top comes apart in the dish.
So a stamina build does not care how hard it hits. It cares whether it can empty your LOCK before its own SPIN runs out — and a heavy-bite build is asking the opposite question. Two bars, two ways to lose, two ways to build.
Four finishes
They run out of spin and stop. The quiet way to win, and the cheapest.
Over the lip and out of the bowl. Needs a real hit at a real angle.
Their LOCK hits zero and the top comes apart. What a high-bite ring is for.
Thrown out of the bowl by a top coming off the rail. The whole match in one hit.
First to four points. Because the finishes are worth different amounts, every round opens with a question worth asking: do you need a point, or do you need three?
One hundred and eighty builds
Six rings, five tracks and six tips. Nothing in the parts list is an upgrade on anything else — each one gives something up for what it gives you, and the trade is written in the numbers rather than hidden behind a star rating. No build in the game tops both spin and lock, or both attack and spin, and that is checked rather than hoped for.
The ring you pick changes the blade count and the shape of the top. The track changes the collar. There is a live spinning preview, ten colours and a name that shows on the HUD during a match, so a build you chose looks like the build you chose.
Eight opponents
The story is told in the gaps between matches. You are handed a top that is already old. You win somewhere that does not matter. You are told the rail is not for people like you, and then you learn the rail anyway. The last three matches are about whether winning the way you were told not to still counts.
What it is not
Gearbreak takes after a toy line whose names, characters, artwork and coined stadium vocabulary belong to Takara Tomy. None of that is here. What is here are the rules, which nobody owns: a top built from stacked parts, a bowl with a rail round it, and several different ways to end a round. Every name, part, character and line of dialogue in this game is original.
Common questions
Yes. It runs in your browser with no download, no account and nothing to buy. Your parts, your custom top and your story progress save on your own device.
A spinning-top battle game. You build a top out of three stacked parts, launch it into a bowl against an opponent, and win rounds by knocking them out of the ring, breaking them apart or outlasting their spin.
A groove running round the upper wall of the bowl. Reach it fast enough, moving along it rather than into it, and your top locks on and accelerates. Coming off the rail into an opponent is worth double, and a ring-out thrown from it scores three. It also burns spin and sits one bad angle away from the lip.
Four ways, worth different points. SPIN OUT is one, RING OUT is two, BREAK is two, and a RAIL KNOCKOUT is three. First to four points takes the match, so a match can end in two rounds or grind out over six.
SPIN is fuel. It falls the whole time and at zero you stop. LOCK is structure. It only falls when you are hit, faster against a high-bite ring, and at zero your top comes apart. They are two separate bars on purpose: a stamina build does not care how hard it hits, it cares whether it can empty your LOCK before its own SPIN runs out.
Six rings, five tracks and six tips, which is 180 builds. No part is simply better than another. Every one is a trade and the trade is written in the numbers rather than hidden behind a star rating.
Yes. There is a live spinning preview, ten colours and a name that shows on the HUD during a match. The ring you pick changes the blade count and shape and the track changes the collar, so a build you chose looks like the build you chose.
Eight opponents, told in the gaps between matches. You are handed a top that is already old, you win somewhere that does not matter, you are told the rail is not for you, and then you learn the rail.
Yes. On a phone it is a handheld console: the bowl in the top half and a moulded body under it, with a cross you steer by angle, A to strike and B for the rail, and the shoulders as alternates for the same two actions so it works two-handed.
No. The names, characters, artwork and stadium vocabulary of that toy line belong to Takara Tomy and none of them are here. What is here are the rules, which nobody owns: a top built from stacked parts, a bowl with a rail, and several ways to end a round. Every name, part, character and line of dialogue in Gearbreak is original.