JUMP ROPE

One button. Space, click, or tap. Press it and your character shoots their legs down to find the floor.

The number is the game. Every landing is measured against the exact instant your feet reach the ground, and shown to the thousandth of a second along the bar at the bottom. −0.008 means eight thousandths early; +0.012 means late. Hit 0.000 and it says so.

Jump height is a staircase, timing is not. A near-perfect landing adds a lot to your chain, a loose one adds a little, and being outside the window takes some away. You climb a rung on the gauge at the top only when the chain crosses a whole number.

Press too early and your legs are in the rope's way. They hang out there for a quarter of a second. If the rope arrives while they are down it snaps in half and costs you a rope. If it does not, you simply lose the chain you had built.

Keep it up and you set off. Thirteen places, always in the same order — so getting to Ashfall means something. Crates hold clothes and are opened in the wardrobe. Chevrons raise your height ceiling for good. Loops give you a spare rope. And now and then the road turns into a staircase, and every jump has to land on the next step up.