Wire

Wire is a one-button tightrope game. Your walker steps out onto a wire high above the circus crowd and keeps walking on her own. Your only job is the balance pole. Holding leans her right and letting go leans her left, so there's no resting position: you feather the button to stay upright. The further she tips, the harder she falls, so catch a wobble early. Gusts of wind and birds landing on the end of the pole push you around, and the walk gets faster the further you go. Every day there's a new wire, with your friends' ghosts wobbling along beside you.

How to play Wire

1. Hold anywhere to lean right. Let go to lean left.
2. Tap and hold in short bursts to keep the walker upright. The gauge at the top shows your lean.
3. Stay out of the red. Lean too far either way and you fall.
4. Lean into the coins hanging beside the wire to grab them with the end of your pole.

Tips to get a high score

• Correct early. A small lean is easy to fix, but a big one pulls you over fast.
• Watch for the GUST warning and the streaks in the air. Lean against the wind before it hits.
• A bird on one end of the pole keeps pushing that side down until it flies off.
• Staying in the green band earns STEADY calls that climb in pitch, and every third one in a row pays a coin.
• Pulling back from the red gets a CLOSE! call, but don't make a habit of it.

What changes as you walk

After a short pause on the platform the walk begins, and for about 70 seconds everything ramps up. Walking speed more than doubles. The pull toward whichever side you're leaning gets about 90% stronger, and the slow sway and small random wobbles grow too. After that the pull keeps creeping up, so every walk ends.

The first gust comes about 7 seconds in. Each one is announced by the GUST arrow, about 1.2 seconds ahead early on and only three-quarters of a second later. Gusts build up and fade out rather than snapping on. They last up to about 2.5 seconds at first and up to 4 seconds later, blow twice as hard, and the quiet spells between them shrink from 3 to 6 seconds down to 1.5 to 3.

The first bird arrives at 18 seconds. You see it fly in for nearly a second before it lands on one end of the pole, then it sits for 2 to 4 seconds, pushing that side down the whole time. Later birds come round more often and push a bit harder.

Your score is your time on the wire

The walker's speed depends only on the clock, never on how you balance. Metres walked is really just how long you stayed up, which is also why every ghost is at exactly the same spot as you.

Staying within about 15 degrees of upright (the green band) for 6 metres earns a STEADY, and STEADYs in a row build a streak. Every third one pays a coin. Leaning past about 34 degrees resets the streak.

The coins hanging beside the wire need a lean of about 17 degrees toward them. That's just outside the green band, so every grab restarts your current STEADY stretch. Coins and STEADYs only buy hats. Late in a walk, when a lean is harder to save, let the coins go.

The point of no return

The further the walker leans, the harder she's pulled over. Early in a walk your pole can win back almost any lean short of a fall. By about a minute in, the pull at around 34 degrees already matches your pole. Past that, holding the other way only slows the fall. That's well before the red on the gauge, so late in a walk the red is a warning you can't act on. Treat the edge of the green band as your limit.

She also carries momentum. If you wait until she's upright to switch, she swings straight through to the other side. Switch while she's still on the way back, and use short, quick taps rather than long holds.

Against a gust or a bird, spend more time pushing the other way. When the arrow points right, stay let go a little longer than you hold. Start that before the gust actually hits.

Daily levels and ghost races

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

FAQ

Add Wire to your site

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

<iframe src="https://tapamine.com/embed/wire/" title="Wire: 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>

If you like this, try

See all 100 games →