Brickwork Bandit

The problem

The cleanest promise an arcade game can make is the run you could have won. Every fall should be your own, and the next attempt should be there at once. A climbing game has a particular version of that problem: if the player can stand still, the tension leaks away.

The rule that solved it

A crane drags the view up the half-built tower all the time, and faster as you climb, so standing still is never safe. Floors are solid from below, which means you jump up through the gaps and zig-zag upward, landing on top of each girder. You slide under hanging beams, ride the swinging girders across wide gaps, and dodge bricks that drop with a brief warning and foremen pacing the girders.

Then there is the sack. Bolts pay 25 points each, but a brick or a foreman spills half your sack and a fall spills it too. Reach every tenth floor and you bank it, and each banked bolt pays another 10. So the game keeps asking one question: push on to the next bank, or play it safe? You start with three lives and gain one every 15 floors, up to five.

What we left out

What we left out was ceremony. The Golden Arcade hall describes the formula as a short run, a visible reason for failure and zero ceremony between attempts. There is no long ending to sit through. Every floor is generated from the run’s seed, so a daily run is the same tower for everyone who plays it.

Try this

Play one run where you bank at every tenth floor no matter what, and one where you carry the sack as far as you dare. Compare the scores. Each new floor pays 10 plus 2 for every floor number, so height is worth more the higher you go, and a full sack spilled just below a bank floor is an expensive mistake. Watch for the brief warning before a brick drops.

The maker’s note

A crane drags the view up the tower and the floors are solid from below, so you jump through the gaps and zig-zag upward. Slide under hanging beams, ride the swinging girders, dodge bricks and foremen, and bank your sack of bolts at every tenth floor. Every floor is generated from the run seed.

This is the note printed on the game’s own page. The Golden Arcade explains the idea it borrows, under three design ideas we borrowed.