Golf on a moon that wants you dead.

Lava Links is arcade golf on a volcanic moon. Line up the shot, tap to swing, bend the ball in flight, and hole out before the lava, the walkers or the mountain get it. It plays in the browser on a phone or a computer: nothing to install, no account, no ads.


How to play

  • Aim: drag anywhere on the course. The arc shows where the shot flies and lands.
  • Swing: tap START SWING, tap again near the top of the bar for power, then tap as the needle crosses the middle: the closer, the straighter.
  • Shape it: tap the club chip to change clubs, then drag the dot on the ball: high to launch it, low to run it, left or right to draw or fade.
  • After-touch: while the ball is in the air, drag across the screen to bend it.
  • Read it: tap the minimap for the yardage book. Booth's read hands you a club and a line, and on the green it reads the break.
  • Mind the moon: lava takes a ball for a stroke. Crater walkers come for a ball at rest: hole out first, or bowl them over for style.

Your first round teaches as you go: one guided hole, then eight short ones on the Benches. Prefer to swipe, or to swing the phone like a club? The ⋯ menu has three swing types.

Keyboard: Space swings, ← → aim (hold Shift for fine), ↑ ↓ change club, Z opens the yardage book, P pauses. Controller: A swings, the stick aims, the bumpers change club.

Ten courses

Four are open from the first tee: Caldera Prime on the sun side, The Underglow on the night side, The Benches (eighteen par threes cut into the shield) and The Frostline on the polar cap, where the ball skates across frozen lakes. Six more are earned: The Obsidian Fields, The Sulphur Flats, The Rift and The Starfield through prestige, The Homeworld by escaping the Lab, and The Core, inside the moon, by summiting the Ascent on Nightmare.

Geysers, ash storms, eruptions and moonfalls keep every hole honest. Smash what floats over the fairway for style. Every course hides nine secrets, three on the ground and six in the sky, to tap or to hit. Hole an ace and the world folds up: a green floats high over the course, three dreams deep.

Set the round your way: three holes, nine or eighteen; Resort, Championship or Nightmare; twists that stack (Midnight, Big Cup, Bouncy Moon, Hurricane, Starfall); and the gravity.

Play with friends

Make a room, send the four-letter code, and up to four phones are in. The host picks the game: golf (with skins, match play or wolf on top), Chaos Golf, Shotgun (everyone at once, or outrun a wall of lava), HORSE, Greenskeeper, The Mole, Siege, the Ascent, Karts, the Legend or the Lab. Room chat and voice chat are built in. One phone and a couch? Hotseat takes two to four.

Finish anything (a round, a Legend run, a race, a climb) and send it as a challenge link. Your friends play the same thing against your number, and the result comes back to you.

More to play

  • The Legend: a sword campaign behind a green door. A cave first, then a fork: the meadow, seven levels down to the Molten King, or Nightfall in the Core, where your lantern is the only light and the Hollow King waits.
  • Legend Frenzy: the meadow in waves that do not stop.
  • The Lab: escape an alien laboratory, ten sublevels up.
  • Karts: the Caldera Cup on eight tracks, one race, or a balloon battle.
  • The Ascent: eighteen holes up the volcano, with camps, a storm and the night.
  • Siege: hold the green against the walkers.
  • Fishing: six waters, thirty-eight fish, and the hours they feed.
  • And: the Caldera Open, a daily round, the Moons Tour, duels, a weekly gauntlet, the driving range, Chip & Toe and the putting green.

The long game

Every hole pays XP: levels, ranks from Rookie to Caldera Immortal, quests and a season track. Level 50 opens the prestige door: thirty-five tiers, each with its own reward, and four courses behind them. A crew creature rides your ball and learns from every hole (twenty-eight to find). The codex keeps 234 secrets. Sign in if you like, to keep it all on any device and post to the boards.

On a phone?

Play at lavalinks.gg. It is the same game and the best way in on a phone: it saves on the phone, goes on the home screen like an app, and rooms and challenge links open there.

It updates most weeks.

More information

Development log