Tug

Tug is a one-button tug of war. You and a rival pull on a rope across a mud pit, with a flag in the middle. Every tap is a heave that drags the flag toward your line. Your rival pulls steadily, and every so often winds up, glows red and surges. Hold to dig your heels in before the surge hits, then get back to tapping. Pull the flag over your line to win the round and a tougher rival steps up. Get dragged over theirs and the run ends. There's a new set of rivals every day, and your friends' ghost flags pull alongside you.

How to play Tug

1. Tap as fast as you can to pull the flag toward your WIN line.
2. When your rival glows red with a "!", hold anywhere to brace.
3. Keep holding until the surge is over, then go back to tapping.
4. Pull the flag over your line to win the round. If it crosses the LOSE line, the run ends.

Tips to get a high score

• Brace just before the surge lands for a PERFECT BRACE. Perfect braces in a row climb in pitch and drop coins.
• Hold through the whole surge and your rival is winded for a moment. Your taps pull extra hard then, so mash!
• From round three some wind-ups are fakes. Let go as soon as you see FAKE!
• Rivals pull harder the longer a round drags on, so finish them quickly.
• Clawing back from right by the LOSE line is a CLOSE! save.

How rivals get stronger

Your first rival is a softie, pulling at about 60 percent of normal strength. From the second round on, every rival's steady pull grows by another 8 percent with no cap, and their surges grow by 6 percent a round.

In practice, two or three taps a second holds the flag still in round one. By round six you need nearly six a second just to stand your ground. Within a round the rival also leans in harder the longer it lasts: after 15 seconds, about twice as hard as at the start.

Surges come more often as well. Early on there are about four seconds between them and the wind-up lasts nearly a second. By around round 13 the gap is under two seconds and the wind-up under half a second. Fake wind-ups start in round three, about one in ten at first and around one in three later.

Bracing done right

A hold counts as a brace after about a twelfth of a second. While braced, only a tenth of a surge gets through, along with half the steady pull, but your own momentum bleeds away fast. Bracing with no surge coming just gives up ground and wastes your taps.

Brace through at least 85 percent of a surge and the rival is winded for about 0.9 seconds. Their steady pull drops to a quarter and each tap pulls 80 percent harder. That's the biggest swing in the game, so be tapping the instant you let go.

A PERFECT BRACE means your hold started no more than about 0.4 seconds before the surge landed. Every third perfect brace in a row drops a coin. Getting dragged by a surge resets that streak; a fake doesn't.

Wind-ups, fakes and a long run

During a wind-up the rival eases off to 60 percent of their steady pull. Early on, when the wind-up is long, that's a chance for a few last taps before you brace in the final half second.

If you braced for a fake, let go and get tapping, but stay alert. After a fake the next wind-up starts within about half a second to a second.

Your score is rounds won, and each win also drops a coin. Because a rival keeps getting stronger the longer a round lasts, use every winded window to make a big jump toward your line, not just to win back what you lost.

Daily levels and ghost races

Today's Tug level is the same for everyone, and you race the ghosts of other players' runs. How daily levels and challenges work.

FAQ

Add Tug to your site

Tug is free to embed on your blog, class page or website. Paste this code:

<iframe src="https://tapamine.com/embed/tug/" title="Tug: free one-tap game" width="360" height="640" style="border:0;border-radius:16px;max-width:100%" allow="autoplay; fullscreen; web-share" loading="lazy"></iframe>

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