Wave is a one-button tunnel flyer. Your blob rides a little arrow that always flies at a sharp 45 degrees: up while you hold, down the moment you let go. There is no in-between, so every line you fly is a zig-zag. The tunnel bends, snaps into steep teeth and hides spike fangs on its flat stretches, and it gets narrower and faster the farther you go. Score is distance in metres. Shave the corners for CLOSE! streaks, grab the coins on the racing line for hats, and race your friends' ghost arrows through the same tunnel every day.
How to play Wave
- Hold anywhere to fly up at 45 degrees. Let go to dive at 45 degrees.
- Stay between the spiky walls. Touching a wall or a spike fang ends the run.
- Short taps make a shallow wiggle, so you can follow gentle slopes and flat stretches.
- Fly as far as you can. Your score is the distance in metres.
Tips to get a high score
- On a steep section just hold (or just let go) and ride the wall's angle exactly.
- Flip direction a beat before each corner, not on it. The arrow needs room to turn.
- A spike fang on a flat stretch means move to the other half of the tunnel early.
- Passing a corner close to the wall counts as CLOSE! Close corners in a row climb in pitch.
- After about a minute the tunnel keeps squeezing. Small, even taps beat big swings.
How the tunnel closes in
For roughly the first 70 seconds, everything ramps up together. Your arrow speeds up from about 3 metres a second to just over 5, and the tunnel shrinks to less than half its starting height. The change is slow at the very start and quickest around the 35-second mark, so the middle of that first minute is where many runs end.
Then the speed levels off, but the tunnel doesn't. It keeps closing a little every second for about two more minutes, until it's only a few arrow-widths tall. From around the three-minute mark it stays that size, so a long run is about holding a steady rhythm, not facing anything new.
The shape changes too. The first few bends are gentle half-slopes. Later you get more full 45-degree slopes and fewer flat stretches, the tunnel reverses direction more often, and some steep slopes are cut short into sharp teeth.
Matching slopes and slipping past fangs
Because your arrow always climbs or dives at exactly 45 degrees, a full steep slope is the easy part. Hold for the whole climb or let go for the whole dive, and you run parallel to the walls.
Half-slopes are trickier, because you can't fly that angle directly. To climb one, hold about three-quarters of the time in quick pulses. To come down one, hold about a quarter of the time. On a flat stretch, split it evenly. Shorter pulses make a smaller zig-zag, which matters once the tunnel is thin.
Spike fangs only appear on flat stretches, and never in the first few bends. More than half of flats carry one early on, and most of them do later. A fang hangs from the ceiling or rises from the floor and can reach past the middle of the tunnel, so move to the open side as soon as you see it and stay there until you're past.
Metres, CLOSE! streaks and coins
Your score is distance in metres, and nothing else changes it. A marker pops up every 25 metres. Each bend in the tunnel is a checkpoint: if your arrow came within a hair of a wall or fang since the last bend, that bend counts as CLOSE! and adds to a streak. One loose bend resets it.
The streak only raises the pitch of the sound. It isn't worth points, so scraping a wall on purpose is never worth it. Coins sit on the middle line of some slopes and go toward hats for your blob. They're on the safest line anyway, so take the ones in your path and skip the rest.
For a long run, fly the middle of the tunnel and watch the next bend rather than your arrow. Once the tunnel is at its narrowest, a short, even rhythm keeps you centred far better than long holds.
Daily levels and ghost races
Today's Wave level is the same for everyone, and you race the ghosts of other players' runs. How daily levels and challenges work.
FAQ
Why does the arrow only go diagonally?
That's the whole game: there's no hovering. Hold is up, release is down, both at the same angle, so you steer by rhythm, like drawing a zig-zag with one finger.
Does the tunnel change?
Every day brings a new seeded tunnel, the same for everyone, so your friends' ghosts fly the exact same bends you do.
Is it free?
Yes. Every Tapamine game is free to play in your browser with no download and no account.
Does it work on my phone?
Yes. Tapamine is built for phones first: portrait, one thumb, and it works offline after your first visit. It also works with a mouse or the spacebar on a computer.
How do challenges work?
After a run, tap “Challenge a friend” to send a link. Your friend plays the exact same level and races your ghost — a replay of your run — to see who wins.
Add Wave to your site
Wave is free to embed on your blog, class page or website. Paste this code:
<iframe src="https://tapamine.com/embed/wave/" title="Wave: 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>