Lift

Lift is a one-button elevator game. You run the lift in an endless tower that only goes up. Hold to speed up, let go and the brakes slow the car to a stop. Riders wait on the landings with their floor number in a bubble. Stop level with their floor and the doors open: they hop in, and they hop out when you stop at the floor they asked for. Brake too late and you sail past, and those riders are missed. Wait too long and they storm off. There's a new tower every day and your friends' ghost cars ride the shaft beside you.

How to play Lift

1. Hold anywhere to send the lift up. It speeds up the longer you hold.
2. Let go to brake. The car slows down and stops on its own.
3. Stop inside the gold band at a lit floor and the doors open. Riders get on or off.
4. Passing a lit floor, or keeping a rider waiting until their ring runs out, costs a heart. Lose three and the run ends.

Tips to get a high score

• The car coasts after you let go, and the faster it goes the farther it coasts. Let go early and feather it in.
• Stopped short? A quick hold nudges you up. That's much better than overshooting.
• Stopping dead level is a PERFECT. Perfects in a row climb in pitch, drop coins and can win back a heart.
• Watch the patience rings. Grab the rider whose ring is nearly empty first.
• Later on the car gets faster and the brakes get weaker, so start braking sooner.

How the tower speeds up

Over roughly the first 70 seconds, the car's top speed rises by nearly half while the brakes lose over a third of their grip. A stop from full speed takes about two-thirds of a floor at the start and nearly two and a half floors by the end of that ramp.

It keeps going after that. Over the next minute or so top speed climbs up to another 25 percent and the brakes weaken by up to a quarter more. The gold band you have to stop inside also narrows to about half its starting width.

The riders change too. Early stops are one to three floors apart and riders travel one to three floors. By about half a minute in, stops are one or two floors apart, rides can be four floors, and four groups wait at once instead of three. Groups of two or three go from 30 to 60 percent of riders.

Scoring, hearts and patience

Your score is riders delivered, so a group of three is worth three. Hearts are lost per group: sail past a floor where a group waits or wants off, or let a waiting group run out of patience, and that's one heart each. Riders already aboard never get impatient.

Waiting riders give you about 12 seconds before they storm off. After the first 70 seconds that shrinks, down to about 7 seconds, so late in a run you can't leave a group waiting while you serve two others.

Stopping within a couple of pixels of level is a PERFECT. Every third perfect stop in a row drops a coin, and every tenth wins back a heart if you're missing one. Any stop that isn't perfect resets the count.

Braking like an operator

Holding speeds you up toward top speed and letting go always brakes. Every trip is a burst of speed followed by a braking glide, and the skill is knowing where the glide ends.

For a stop one floor up, the car never gets near top speed, so the glide is short and easy to judge. Save long holds for when the next stop is several floors away, and let go well before it.

Stopping short costs nothing but a moment, while overshooting costs a heart. A short tap from a standstill moves the car up only a few pixels, perfect for creeping into the band, so when in doubt, brake early and nudge.

Daily levels and ghost races

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

FAQ

Add Lift to your site

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

<iframe src="https://tapamine.com/embed/lift/" title="Lift: 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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