Waking the arena…
No ads in the pit — one discus, four acts, thirty labours
Play Diskobolos — a free Greek-myth discus puzzle about the twelve labours
Play Diskobolos free: a Greek-myth discus puzzle. Throw the bronze discus, sink Heracles' labour tokens into the corner pits and open the bronze door for Iole across thirty chapters.
Diskobolos: The Twelve Labours is a free browser discus puzzle built on Greek myth. You are Heracles in the arena of Eurystheus, throwing one bronze discus at the labour tokens scattered across a marble court. A token only counts when it drops into one of the four corner pits, so every chapter is a short, sharp question of angles, rebounds and the order you take things in.
The frame is the myth itself. King Eurystheus has counted twelve labours onto a bronze tally, and behind his bronze door waits Iole, princess of Oechalia. Every chapter is one labour: the Nemean lion, the Lernaean hydra, the golden apples of the Hesperides, and at the end, the road down to Cerberus. Thirty chapters across four acts, and one girl counting the light under a door.
How a chapter works
- Aim. Move the pointer: the dotted line is the discus path, and it ends where the discus will first strike. Press the throwing strip at the bottom to walk Heracles along the line.
- Charge. Press and hold anywhere on the court. The ring around the discus fills; the arrow keys or A D W S do the same on a keyboard, and space charges the throw.
- Release. The discus flies, bounces off stone walls and bronze pillars, and anything it pushes into a corner pit is counted. Potting two tokens with one throw pays a chain bonus.
- Count. Each chapter gives you a fixed number of throws, shown as bronze discs in the top right. Run out with a token still on the marble and the chapter ends.
- Beat par. Every chapter has a par, proven by an aiming bot that searched thousands of shots. Finish in par for three stars, par plus two for two stars.
What the tokens do
| Token | What it is | The rule |
|---|---|---|
| Bronze | Ordinary labour tokens | Sink on contact. The bread and butter of every chapter. |
| Ember | Iolaus' torch, glowing orange | Sink it before you take any hydra head, or every head you sink sprouts two small heads where it fell. |
| Hydra head | Green, three coiling necks | Worth taking — in the right order. Small heads count like any other token. |
| Stone apple | White marble with a gold leaf | Refuses the pit until it has been struck once and cracked. Two contacts, every time. |
The four acts
| Act | Chapters | Where you are | What the court does |
|---|---|---|---|
| I · The Nemean Court | 1–8 | Open marble, bronze tokens | Teaches the throw, the rebound and the bank shot. Par 3–7 throws. |
| II · The Lernaean Hydra | 9–16 | The black spring at Lerna | Hydra heads and the torch ember punish the wrong order. |
| III · The Garden of the Hesperides | 17–24 | West of the sunset | Stone apples need cracking; pillars fling the discus hard. |
| IV · The Hound of Hades | 25–30 | Down to Tartarus and back | The pits narrow, guard pillars sit in the corners, and every rule arrives at once. |
Strategy that actually works
- Order is everything. Ember first, hydra second, stone last. A cheap multi-pot beats two careful shots.
- Walk the line. Ten paces sideways change every angle in the chapter. The cheapest upgrade in the game is a better starting spot.
- Bank off the long wall. A corner pit reached by one rebound is worth two direct shots.
- Leave the crowd alone. Smashing a cluster feels great and usually scatters tokens away from the pits. Slow rolls crack stone just as well as hard ones.
- Count before you release. Par is a proven number, not a decoration. Two throws left and two tokens on the marble is a plan, not a hope.
Technical notes
The game is a single deterministic physics simulation: a fixed 120 Hz step, exponential damping, mass-weighted impulses and seeded procedural courts. The marble, the crowd, the discus and every token are painted on Canvas 2D; the crowd murmur, the bronze clacks and the lyre that plays when a labour is counted are built from oscillators and filtered noise through the Web Audio API. There is no image file inside the game, no audio file, no font download and no third-party script. Progress, stars and your endless record are stored under diskobolos.trials.v1. Nothing is uploaded, because there is no server.
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Diskobolos — frequently asked questions
What is Diskobolos: The Twelve Labours?
Diskobolos is a free browser puzzle game built on Greek myth. You play Heracles in the arena of Eurystheus, throwing one bronze discus at the labour tokens scattered across a marble court. A token only counts when it drops into one of the four corner pits, so each chapter is a short billiards-style puzzle about angles, rebounds and the order you take things in. There are thirty chapters across four acts and an endless mode called The Colonnade.
How do I aim and throw the discus?
Move the pointer or your finger to aim: a dotted line shows the discus path and where it will first strike. Press and hold anywhere on the court to charge power, watch the ring around the discus fill, and release to throw. On a keyboard, the left and right arrows walk the thrower along the line, the up and down arrows tilt the aim, and holding space charges the throw. The discus always returns to the throwing line before the next throw.
What do the different tokens do?
Bronze tokens are ordinary labour tokens and sink on contact. Hydra heads are green: sink one while the torch ember is still burning and two small heads sprout where it fell, so the ember must go first. Stone apples are white marble and refuse the pit until they have been struck once and cracked. Small heads count like any other token. Every token on the court must reach a pit to finish the chapter.
How do throws and stars work?
Each chapter gives you a fixed number of throws, shown as bronze discs in the top right. Run out with a token still on the court and the chapter ends. Three stars means you finished in the par number of throws or fewer, two stars means par plus two, and one star is any other clear. Par is not a guess: every chapter was cleared by an aiming bot that searches thousands of shots, so the number on the brief screen is a real, repeatable line.
Is there an endless mode?
Yes. The Colonnade unlocks after chapter eight. It deals seeded courts with a growing number of tokens and pillars, and you carry one shared pool of throws from court to court — eight to start, one back for every court you clear and a second one if you clear a court in three throws or fewer. The run ends when the pool runs dry mid-court, and your best court and best score are saved locally.
How hard does it get?
Act I teaches the throw, the rebound and the bank shot on open marble. Act II adds the hydra, which punishes the wrong order. Act III adds stone apples that need two contacts. Act IV narrows the pits, puts guard pillars in the corners and mixes every rule at once. Par climbs from four throws to eight, and the last chapters ask you to plan two or three tokens ahead instead of one.
Is the game free and does it work on a phone?
It is completely free, with no download, no install and no ads inside the game. It runs in any modern browser on desktop, tablet and phone, and it works with a mouse, a finger or a keyboard. Progress, stars and your endless record are stored in your own browser under a single local key, and nothing is uploaded because there is no server.