Stairs

Stairs is a one-button endless climber. A zig-zag staircase winds up into the sky and your little blob climbs it one step at a time. A quick tap steps forward the way you're facing. When the stairs switch direction, hold for a moment to turn around and step. Pick wrong and you step into thin air. A timer drains the whole time and every step tops it up, so the faster you climb, the longer you last. There's a new staircase every day and your friends' ghosts climb right beside you.

How to play Stairs

1. Tap anywhere to take one step in the direction you're facing.
2. When the next step goes the other way, hold for a moment: you turn around and step.
3. Keep climbing. Every step refills the timer bar at the top, and it drains faster the longer you climb.
4. Step the wrong way or let the timer run out and the run ends.

Tips to get a high score

• Read two or three steps ahead so you already know when the turn is coming.
• Keep taps short. Holding too long turns you around, and that's the most common fall.
• Climbing in a quick rhythm builds an in-a-row streak, and the step sound climbs in pitch.
• Stepping while the timer is red earns a CLOSE! save, but it's better not to cut it that fine.
• Coins sit on some steps. Climb over them to grab them.

The clock and the staircase both ramp

How fast the timer drains depends on how long you've been climbing. A full bar lasts almost seven seconds at the start, and by about 70 seconds it empties in two and a half. After that it keeps draining a little faster every second, so every run ends eventually.

Each step refills 8 percent of the bar at first, dropping to about 6 percent by the 70-second mark. That means about two steps a second holds the bar steady early on, but by the end of the ramp you need over six a second.

The staircase itself changes by step count. For roughly the first 130 steps every straight run is at least two steps long and can stretch to six. Past that, single steps between turns start showing up, and by step 360 a turn comes every one to three steps.

Tap timing and the turn

A tap steps when you lift your finger, not when you press. Hold for a fifth of a second and you turn and step straight away, without letting go. So a tap that lingers can turn you by accident, and every turn costs at least a fifth of a second.

That makes turns the slow part of a climb. Late staircases are full of them, so make your straight steps as quick as you can to bank time for the turns.

The staircase always opens with a straight run of five steps to the right. Use them to settle into a rhythm before your first turn.

Streaks, saves and coins

Your score is steps climbed. Steps that come within a third of a second of each other build the rhythm streak, with a flourish every 25 in a row, but the streak doesn't add steps or time. Any slower step starts it over.

Stepping while the bar is under a fifth full earns a CLOSE! save, and it won't trigger again until the bar is back above 40 percent. Coins sit on about one step in eleven after the first few. You collect them just by stepping on them, and they go to your coin total.

There are no extra lives. One wrong-way step ends the run, so read the next step as you land rather than as you press.

Daily levels and ghost races

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

FAQ

Add Stairs to your site

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

<iframe src="https://tapamine.com/embed/stairs/" title="Stairs: 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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