1,200 MArcade
UPBEAT
A 1,200 m tower climb in 56 numbered stages, where blocks, spikes and lifts move to the music.
What it is
the tower keeps time
A side-on climb up one tower, 1,200 metres from a night street to orbit, in 56 numbered stages and six summits. Each of its seven zones brings its own things to learn: one-way ledges, spikes, kill bricks and launch pads; moving lifts, belts and glass that vanishes under you; blocks that swap every two beats and spikes that fire on the beat; ice, gravity flips and blue orbs; updrafts, spinning bars, lightning and dash orbs; thin air you float in and jet streams that carry you; and most of them at once in orbit. The music is made as you play and it is the clock: everything that moves keeps its beat. It also keeps the stakes: the further you climb above your last checkpoint, the more of the song plays, and close under the next one it hangs on a chord only the checkpoint resolves. Climb in Checkpoints mode, which saves you every fourth stage, or in Summits mode, where only the six summits do. Either way a fall drops you as far as it drops you.
How to play
Controls, then the numbers that matter
A jump clears 4 blocks; press jump again in mid-air for a second jump that takes you to about 6. Every pad and orb gives the second jump back.
Pads fire when you touch them, orbs when you jump while inside one. Pink lifts you about 5 m, yellow 9 m and violet 13 m; orbs add 3, 5 and 9 m from wherever you are. Blue flips gravity, and a white orb dashes you 7 blocks sideways.
Cyan and magenta blocks swap every two beats and blink for the half beat before they change. Spikes in a red slot fire for one beat in every two, and lightning twitches a beat before it strikes.
A flag saves you and turns green once you reach it: in Checkpoints mode there is one on stages 1, 5, 9 and every fourth after, and the numbers painted on the floor between them only count. Summits mode has flags only at the summits, 161, 321, 481, 641, 801 and 1,001 m. Fall more than 4 m below your save and you are back on it.
Glass vanishes half a second after you land on it and comes back 2.4 s later. Belts carry you 5.5 blocks a second, and ice keeps whatever speed you bring onto it.
In thin air, the dashed haze above the storm, a jump rises about 7.5 m and a double jump nearly 12, and you come down slowly. Jet streams carry you 6 blocks a second the way their streaks run, standing or flying.
Three coins hide in every zone, 21 in all. A coin you touch circles you and counts once you carry it to a checkpoint; die first and it goes back. Coins, summits and topping out unlock icons in the wardrobe. Practice mode, in the pause menu, lets you drop your own checkpoint with C, but that climb no longer counts as a record.
Trophies
11 trophies
Sign in and the ones you earn light up here and on your account.
- Reached Summit 1 at 161 m
- Reached Summit 2 at 321 m
- Reached Summit 3 at 481 m
- Reached Summit 4 at 641 m
- Reached Summit 5 at 801 m
- Reached Summit 6 at 1,001 m
- Topped out at 1,200 m
- Topped out on summit saves alone
- Reached a summit without dying
- Found a coin
- Found all 21 coins
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From the changelog
What changed
UPBEAT: a 1,200-metre climb that keeps time
- UPBEAT takes Fall Arrest’s place on the arcade: one tower, 56 numbered stages and six summits from a night street through the jet stream to orbit, where beat blocks, spikes, lifts and lightning all keep time with music made as you play, and the music rises with what a fall would cost you. Climb in Checkpoints mode, with a save every fourth stage, or in Summits mode, where only the summits save you.
UPBEAT went up on the arcade
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