The rules in brief
Tap to hop upward; stop tapping and the ball falls. Every obstacle is built from four colors, and you can only pass through the part that matches your ball. Touching any other color shatters it, and so does falling off the bottom of the screen. Each obstacle holds a star worth one point, and rainbow orbs switch your ball to a new color.
1. Learn to hover
Every hop gives the same upward kick no matter how fast you are moving, so a steady rhythm of light taps keeps the ball roughly in place. Practice holding the ball just below a gate while its colors move past. Being able to wait is the most useful skill in the game.
At the start the ball rests on a launch pad, so there is no rush before your first hop.
2. Rings: in through the bottom, out through the top
A ring is split into four colored quarters, and you cross it twice: once through the bottom and once through the top, which are always different quarters. Enter when your color is at the bottom, hover inside the ring while it turns, and hop out once your color has come round to the top.
Squares work the same way, but their color changes suddenly at each corner. Enter just after a corner passes to give yourself the most time.
3. Bars: wait for the middle
Sliding bars come in pairs, and the upper bar mirrors the lower one, so the color in the middle of both is always the same. When your color slides into the middle, hop through both bars in one go.
4. Double rings, windmills and twin gears
A double ring is two rings turning in opposite directions, built so that both always show the same color straight above and straight below the center. Treat each side as one thick gate: pass through the bottom of both bands together when your color is there, then wait inside the inner ring until your color reaches the top.
Windmills are offset to one side, so their four arms sweep across your path like a turnstile. You can slip through the gap between two arms, or through an arm of your own color. Twin gears are two rings touching at the ball's column and turning against each other, and only the color where they meet matters. Their star sits just above the gears.
5. Plan around color switches
Rainbow orbs sit on your path between obstacles, so you always collect them, and they always change your ball to a different color. After grabbing one, look at the next gate with your new color in mind before you hop into it. Not every gap has an orb, so sometimes you keep the same color through two or more obstacles.
How the climb gets harder
The first two obstacles are always single rings. Bars and squares join after that, windmills and double rings a few gates later, and twin gears from about the tenth obstacle. Everything spins and slides faster as you climb until around the thirtieth obstacle, after which the speed holds steady. Bronze is 10 stars, silver 25 and gold 50.
Common mistakes
- Hopping into a gate the moment it looks close instead of waiting for your color.
- Forgetting that your color just changed after a rainbow orb.
- Letting the ball sink too far while waiting and dropping off the bottom of the screen.
- Tapping in fast bursts, which launches the ball into the next band before your color lines up.
Try it now: hover, wait for your color and slip through.