The controls
Tap the screen to flap. Each tap pushes the ship up and gravity pulls it back down. On a computer, click or press the Space bar. Every tap gives the same lift, so a steady rhythm beats hammering the screen.
The ceiling is safe: touching it only stops your climb. The floor ends the run, however many hearts you have left.
Walls and turret shots cost a heart each, and ships have three to five. After a hit you blink briefly and can't be hurt. Once per run, when a hit or the floor would end it, time slows and FLAP NOW! appears. Tap in time and you carry on with one heart and 50 bonus points.
Your gun fires itself
You never press fire. The cannon shoots the whole time you fly, and every shot adds heat. The gun cools on its own, but most ships heat up faster than they cool. When the heat bar fills, the gun jams until it has cooled below half, which takes about two seconds.
You can't switch the gun off, so you manage heat in other ways:
- Graze walls. Fly close past a block without touching it. Four grazes in quick succession vent some heat, and each graze is worth 5 points.
- Grab Coolant. It dumps all your heat and gives you 3 seconds of nonstop fire.
- Take the Cooler Cannon ring when it's offered. Your gun then holds more heat before it jams.
- Fly the right ship. LANCE never jams and RAZOR runs hottest. See the fleet.
The top fifth of the heat bar is Redline. In it, your shots do 50% more damage and kills score 50% more. It's also the closest you can get to a jam.
Reading the course
Walls come as columns of blocks with a gap to fly through. Colour tells you what each block is. Hit counts are for a standard gun.
| Colour | Block | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Cyan | Breakable | Breaks in two hits |
| Orange | Armour | Takes four hits |
| Amber | Turret | Takes two hits and shoots back. It blinks just before it fires. |
| Red | Core | Sits in the boss gate at the end of each sector |
Each sector is twelve walls and then a boss gate: a solid column with the red core in it and a turret two blocks above and below. Shoot a way through it to reach the next sector.
Some gaps hold a pickup: Coolant, Overdrive (double fire rate for 5 seconds with no heat), Shield (blocks one hit), Repair (one heart back), Slow-Mo, and Blast, which destroys every wall in sight.
The course speeds up over the first few sectors. After that the walls get tougher instead, and every fourth sector opens with a breather of easy walls.
Banking: your score is at risk
Most points go straight onto your score. Motes are different. These small yellow sparks spill out of broken blocks, and each one you collect is worth 3 points. Those points go into your bank first, and the bank is at risk until you get it through the boss gate.
As the gate comes into view, the game shows two numbers:
- SAFE ROUTE: shoot a hole anywhere else in the gate and fly through. The bank pays out as it is.
- BREAK THE CORE: destroy the red core and the whole gate falls. The bank pays double, plus a gate bonus that grows every sector.
Take a hit before the gate and the bank is lost, although a hit your shield absorbs doesn't count. So every sector asks you to choose: chase more motes, or get these home?
Fever
Collect enough motes in one sector without taking a hit and Fever starts. The sky changes, FEVER ×2 fills the screen, and your bank pays double at the gate. Break the core during Fever and the bank pays four times over. The target is 30 motes in Sector 1, rising by 5 each sector to a maximum of 60. A flame lights on the meter when you're two away.
How scoring adds up
| Source | Points |
|---|---|
| Flying | A trickle that grows as the course speeds up |
| Cyan block | 15 |
| Armour block | 40 |
| Turret | 60 |
| Core | 120, plus a gate bonus of 200 in Sector 1 and 50 more each sector after |
| Graze | 5 |
| Mote | 3, paid when you bank |
Breaking blocks within 2.5 seconds of each other builds a combo. Four in a chain doubles their points, and eight triples them. Redline kills score 50% more on top. At the end of an Endless run you also earn one coin for every 20 points.
Tips for your first runs
- Your first run is gentler. It has softer gravity, no turrets in the first six walls and one bounce off the floor. The real game starts on run two.
- Don't chase every mote. A small bank that makes it home is worth more than a big one that doesn't.
- Start on the core early. With a standard gun it takes seven hits in Sector 1 and one more each sector, up to sixteen.
- Pick a ring. From Sector 2 in Endless, the Weekly Lab and Ace, each sector opens with three rings: DRILL SHOTS, COOLER CANNON and BIGGER MAGNET. Fly through one and it lasts the whole run.
- Try Assist if Sector 1 feels impossible. It's a switch in Settings, and the FAQ explains what it changes.
Next, the modes page covers the Daily, the Weekly Lab and Ace. Or just start a run.