A one-touch arcade dodger built around a single move. You fly a lone fighter into a tide of alien ships pouring in from across the screen and the whole thing comes down to timing your lift before the jet drops into something solid.

At a glance

The mission

The swarm slipped past the outer stations sometime in the night and by the time anyone made sense of what they were seeing it was already a river of hulls bearing down on the inner line. Command emptied the hangars, every fighter it had going up at once, only that is not your part of the story, because when the scramble order reached your deck there was one bird left fueled and it had your name painted on the side.

So you are out there alone, no wingman off your shoulder and no second run if you clip a wing. The alien ships never fire, they have never needed to, they just keep coming in rows and you thread between them or you don’t. Every hull you slide past is one the line behind you never has to face and that is the whole of the job really, keep her flying and let the next gap decide how far you get.

Flying the jet

The jet falls on its own, so the entire game is you fighting that fall with small taps. Tap and it lifts, ease off and it drifts back down and once you stop stabbing at the button and settle into a light steady rhythm it flies a lot smoother than it does when you panic. Overcook the taps and you float up into a hull, go too light and you sink into one, the line you want sits somewhere in the middle and you find it by feel.

• Tap the screen, click, or press Space to lift the jet.
• Nothing to hold down, it is single taps that keep you airborne.
• The ceiling only bumps you back, but touching the ground ends the run.

How a run plays out

1. The jet hangs in place at the start and waits on you, it will not drop until your first input, so take a second to read the lane.
2. Your first tap launches the run and from that point gravity is always working against you.
3. Alien ships slide in from the left at mixed heights and sizes and you weave through the gaps between them.
4. Every ship you clear adds five points to a counter that ticks up live while you fly.
5. Clip a hull or scrape the ground and the run is over, your score drops straight onto the board.

Scoring and the world board

Points stay simple and they update live in the corner while you fly. The real pressure is the speed, it holds steady at the start but keeps stepping up the further you get, until the lanes are arriving faster than you can comfortably read them. That climb is the actual opponent, not any one ship sitting in front of you.

• Each ship you get past is worth five points.
• The swarm shifts up half a gear for every twenty ships you clear and it keeps ratcheting from there.
• One pilot name holds one row on the board and it only ever keeps your highest score.

The board itself is shared, so everyone who plays is looking at the same names, which means beating it is not only about topping your own record, it is about sitting above the last pilot who figured their spot was safe.

Pilot tips

• Read the lane before it reaches you. Look at where the next ship sits while you are still clearing the current one, not when it is already on top of you, that half second of warning is most of the game.
• Big hulls need an earlier decision. Commit your line while there is still room, because a large ship leaves you far less gap to correct if you leave the move late.
• Feed small inputs instead of fighting it. The jet settles into a smooth glide on light steady taps, but stab at the button and it starts bouncing between the taps and the fall.
• Every speed step steals reaction time. The run does not get harder because the ships change, it gets harder because you get less warning, so the further you go the earlier you have to read each gap.

Vivid2201 player guide. Tap, click or press Space to fly. Dodge the swarm, climb the board.