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Springline is a climbing game, free in your browser with no download and no account. Your ball bounces on its own, and you steer it left and right so that it lands on the next pad and bounces higher. This note covers version 0.6, and you can play Springline in another tab while you read.
The tower has no walls: leave the screen on one side and you come back in on the other. The screen climbs by itself, a little faster all the time, so you cannot stay put.
How do you steer? #
On a phone or tablet, hold the left or the right side of the screen. The ball answers at once, and when you let go it goes straight up and down again.
On a computer, hold the left or right arrow, or A and D. Space starts the next try after a fall. P or Escape pauses. In the menu, the left and right arrows change the level and Space or Enter plays. Outside a room, the game also pauses when you switch to another tab or app.
Springline plays in English and in Spanish, where it goes by Pa' Arriba. It starts in the language you use on the site, and EN and ES at the top of its menu switch between them.
What ends a climb? #
A climb ends when you fall off the bottom of the screen or touch an enemy, and that holds on level 1 too. If you have a shield, it saves you once, from a fall or from an enemy, and then you are untouchable for 1.4 seconds. One tap, or Space, starts the next try, and a retry begins on the level you were on.
The coins you pick up are kept even when you fall.
What are the pads and enemies? #
A level's number sets how hard it is: how far apart the pads are, how small they are, and what moves. The first levels are the gentlest, with wide pads close together. A numbered level is built again every time you play, so no two tries are the same.
Teal pads with two arrows are in from the start: land on one and the ball is thrown much higher than in a normal bounce. Two more things turn up from level 2. A pink coin is worth ten and sits out in the open on a narrow pad of its own: drop to it, and if you miss that pad you fall. A green pause stops the screen from climbing for 6 seconds.
New kinds of pad and enemy join in as you climb, each with a short line the first time you meet it. Each one starts at the level below, in version 0.6:
| Thing | From level | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| Cracked pads | 3 | They take one bounce, then break |
| Rockets | 6 | A pickup standing on a pad. Touch it and you shoot up for about two seconds, and nothing can hit you on the way |
| Moving pads | 8 | Land where they will be |
| Cars | 10 | An enemy. Land on top, never into the side. A landing on top squashes the car and bounces you |
| Ice pads | 12 | Off an ice pad the ball turns slowly |
| Fading pads | 15 | They start to fade once touched, so move on |
| Spinners | 21 | An enemy. Keep clear |
| Pads that rise and sink | 31 | They drift up and down |
| Blinking pads | 41 | They flicker before they go |
What are the modes? #
- Levels. Numbered, and they never run out. A climb does not stop at the top of a level: a card says the level is done, with its stars and coins, and you keep climbing into the next one. Ten levels make a world, each with its own colours and music. The ninth level of a world is marked hard in the menu, and the tenth eases off.
- Daily climb. One tower a day, the same for every player, with a new one at midnight UTC. Its difficulty falls between level 24 and level 42, depending on the weekday. The Daily button shows a check once you have finished today's.
- Endless. One climb with no top, starting at level 1. The level goes up by one every 25 metres, and your score is how high you got. A pin marks your best height.
How do you play with friends? #
One of you hosts a room and the others join it, up to 20 players. Everyone climbs the same tower at the same time, each on their own phone, and you see the others climb live, as coloured balls with their names. A rail along the left edge shows everyone's height. Everyone needs a connection while the room is open.
How do you host a room? #
On the menu, tap Play with friends and then Host a room. Choose the settings:
| Setting | Choices |
|---|---|
| Mode | Race, Each for themselves, Teams, Relay |
| Teams | 2, 3 or 4 (Teams and Relay only) |
| To the top | 250 m, 500 m, 1 km or 2 km (Race and Relay) |
| Time | 1, 2 or 3 minutes (Each for themselves and Teams) |
A first room starts on Race and 500 m, and the game keeps what you chose for the next one. Tap Create room. If you play as a guest, the game asks for your name in the room first: 3 to 16 letters, numbers or underscores, no spaces, and it has to pass the game's word filter. With a free player account, the game uses your player tag as your name and does not ask.
Then the lobby opens, with the room's code of six letters on top. Change reopens the settings from there. With teams, players can tap Join this team, you can tap a player's name to move them to another team, and Shuffle teams mixes everyone up. When everyone is in, tap Start. A three-second countdown runs and the climb begins.
How do friends join? #
The lobby shows the ways to send the room that work on your device:
- WhatsApp, which opens with a message and the link in it.
- Share, where your phone has a share sheet.
- Copy the link, to paste anywhere.
- QR, a code for a friend next to you to scan with their camera.
The link opens the play page straight into your room. A friend can also open the game, tap Play with friends, tap Join with a code and type the six letters. The game says so if the code is not six letters long, if no room with that code is open, and if the room is full.
What do the room modes do? #
- Race. The first to the top wins. The race ends when everyone has finished, 45 seconds after the first finisher, or at six minutes.
- Each for themselves. The highest when time runs out wins.
- Teams. Your team's average height counts when time runs out.
- Relay. One climber per team. When they fall, the next teammate goes on from a little below the team's best height.
Outside Relay, a fall costs you a moment: the ball comes back and you keep climbing. In a room, everyone plays with the same ball: upgrades and shields do not count, only looks. Pausing does not stop the game in a room, so the others keep climbing while you have the pause panel open.
At the end you see the standings and the coins you picked up, counted at the value a coin has at each height. With more than one player, the first three places get 50%, 25% and 10% more. The host can play again, change the settings, or leave, and everyone else waits for the host and goes straight in if a new game starts. The room closes when the host leaves.
How do stars and coins work? #
Every level has three stars:
- Get past its top.
- Collect every coin on it (the pink one does not count).
- Do it without having lost a try on that level before.
Each star pays 10% more of that level's coins right away. Passing a level also pays a prize of 20 coins. What a coin is worth rises with the world, and the menu shows it under the level number ("Coins worth ... each"). A pink coin counts for ten. The daily climb has stars too, and Endless has none.
Coins are few and sit a little off the way up, one at a time, so you have to steer out to take them.
What does the store sell? #
You spend coins in the store, which you can reach from the menu, after a try, or from the pause (going there from the pause ends the climb in progress). It has three sections:
- Upgrades. Magnet draws coins in from further away, up to about three times the reach. Slim makes the ball up to 25% smaller, to slip past enemies. Springs makes every bounce a little higher. Coin bonus adds 5% more coins for each level. Each level costs more than the last, and the later levels of an upgrade open as you get further through the game's levels.
- Boosts. Shields, which you can hold up to 9, and Guardian, a shield on every climb for good. The coin multiplier goes up to x4 and works in every game on the site. After a loss with no shield, the game offers a retry with one if you have the coins.
- Looks. 100 balls, 100 trails and 100 backgrounds. They change nothing about how the game plays. Reaching a new level opens one, and others open by time played, stars, daily climbs or height in Endless. About a third are gifts the moment they open, and the rest are for sale.
Prices in coins scale with your coin level, so there is no fixed price list.
Does it save my progress? #
As a guest, your progress, coins and settings are saved in this browser on this device only. With a free account, your progress and coins follow you to every device where you sign in: see your account page. The leaderboard ranks players with an account, by highest level and stars, and by best height in Endless, and the Springline page lists its top 10. In a room, your name, where you are in the tower and your score go to the other players while the room is open.
Two other launch notes work the same way: Snakey, our snake game, and Cart Jam, a cart-pushing puzzle.
