How to play
HELIX DROP is a tall tower of spinning candy rings with a bouncing ball on top. The ball never moves sideways. It just bounces up and down on the ring below it, forever, and your job is to spin the tower so that a gap in the ring comes round underneath it. When it does, the ball drops through to the next ring. Reach the glowing white ring at the bottom and the level is cleared.
To spin, drag left or right anywhere on the screen with your finger or the mouse. The tower follows you exactly, so a slow drag makes a small turn and a quick swipe makes a big one. On a keyboard, hold Left and Right or A and D; the spin speeds up the longer you hold.
The coloured parts of a ring are safe to bounce on. Red is deadly. Land on red and the ball goes splat, and the level starts again from the top with your score set back to what it was when the level began. Tap anywhere, or press Space, Enter or R, to try again. Esc or P pauses and M turns the sound off.
The best part is the fireball. Fall through three rings in a row without bouncing and the ball catches fire. The next ring it touches is smashed to pieces, whatever colour it is, red included, and you carry on falling.
Tips and strategy
- Chain your falls. Each ring you drop through is worth more the longer your fall: the first is worth 1, the second 2, and so on up to 10 per ring. A bounce resets it to 1, so line up the next gap while the ball is still falling.
- Save the fireball for red. Once you are on fire, a ring full of red is nothing to fear. If the gap is hard to reach, just let the ball hit the ring and smash it. A smash is worth double.
- Straight down is safe. If you drop through a gap and let the ball fall straight on, it will never land on red directly below, unless one of those two rings is a ring that turns by itself.
- Watch the spinning rings. From level 5 some rings rotate on their own. Aim a little ahead of the gap, not at where it is now.
- Finish on a chain. Landing on the goal ring after falling through two or more rings in a row adds a bonus of five points for each ring in that fall.
What's in it
Levels is the big PLAY button. Every level is built from a fixed seed, so level 12 is the same tower every time and for every player. Level 1 has 11 rings and each level adds a little more, up to 40 rings from level 24 on. The difficulty climbs until about level 37: gaps get fewer and narrower, there is more red, and on harder towers the red likes to sit right next to the gaps. The first two levels go easy on red: there is only a little of it, and some rings get one red piece placed opposite the gap so you can learn what to avoid. When you clear a level the next one starts by itself a moment later, or straight away if you tap, and the colour theme changes. There are six themes.
Your score carries on from level to level, and every ring you pass is multiplied by your level band: times 1 for levels 1 to 4, times 2 for levels 5 to 8, times 3 for levels 9 to 12, and so on.
Endless is one tower that never ends and is different every time. It starts easy and gets harder the deeper you go, and your multiplier goes up by one every 30 rings. One splat ends the run. It keeps its own best score.
Questions
Why did the ball smash through a red ring?
It was on fire. After three rings in a row with no bounce, the ball becomes a fireball and breaks the next ring it touches, red or not.
Can I play on a phone?
Yes. It was made for touch: drag anywhere to spin the tower. It works held upright or sideways.
Does it save?
Yes, in your own browser: the level you have reached, your best score, your best endless score and whether the sound is on. Clearing your browser's site data clears the save.