How to play
You start on the ground floor of a six-storey concrete frame and the job is to reach the roof. Each floor is a long open slab with a stair at one end, and the stairs switch sides as you go up, so every floor has to be crossed end to end. Men with the same sawed-off wait on each storey: one on the ground floor, then two, three, four and five, with five again on the top floor. From the fourth floor up, one of them is a heavy, slower on his feet but much harder to put down.
The gun is how you move. Every shot pushes you away from where the barrel points: fire at the floor and you go up, fire into a wall beside you and it throws you off it. One shell lifts you about half a storey; two fired quickly carry you up through a stairwell opening to the floor above. The enemies feel none of the push.
At the top of every stair there is a crate. It offers three upgrade cards; pick one with 1, 2 or 3. The crate also restores 45 of your 100 health, and it is the only healing in the building. There is no stair off the sixth floor, so the last climb onto the roof has to be done with the gun. Reach it and the game says THE ROOF. Lose all ten blocks of health and you are DOWN; reload the page to start again.
Tips and strategy
- Read the marks over their heads. A yellow bang means a man has just seen you. A red bracket closing over him means he is lining up a shot. Two dots mean he is reloading.
- When the red bracket appears, his angle is already locked. Anything that moves you before it closes makes him miss, and a shell into the floor is the quickest way to do that. On the first floor you have about three quarters of a second; on the sixth, roughly a third.
- Only one man on a floor can wind up at a time, so you never dodge two shots at once.
- Shoot first. Any hit staggers a man out of his wind-up, so landing a shell while the bracket is closing cancels his shot entirely.
- Get close. Your pellets do full damage for the first two and a half metres or so and fade to a quarter by thirteen metres. A full blast tops out at 74, which kills a first-floor man (48 health) outright, while a sixth-floor man has 93 and a heavy over 130.
- When an enemy runs dry he breaks the gun open and stands still for two seconds.
- The drums explode when shot, hurting and throwing anyone within about four metres, and set off other drums nearby. The blast throws you too.
- Your reload takes just under a second and starts on its own when you are empty. Press R on a quiet stretch rather than running dry mid-fight.
What's in it
Six floors, five upgrade crates, and twenty enemies across the run, three of them heavies. The upgrades come from eight kinds, and some can be taken more than once:
- Magazine Extender (up to 3): one more shell, slower reload.
- Shorter Barrel (up to 2): harder kick, wider spread, less reach.
- Choke (up to 2): tighter pattern and longer reach, for a little less kick.
- Quick Hands (up to 2): faster reloads and follow-up shots.
- Slug Loads: two heavy balls instead of a spread, far more damage and kick.
- Braced Stock: the kick barely moves you standing, but still throws you in the air.
- Light Boots (up to 2): lower gravity, so every shot carries you further.
- Twin Trigger: right click fires both barrels at once for double the kick.
Questions
Can I shoot through the columns?
Yes. You walk past them and your shots pass them too. The waist-high brick barricades do stop pellets, and you step up onto them.
Does it save my progress?
No. A run is one climb from the ground floor to the roof, and dying means starting over.
Can I pause?
Yes, P pauses. The arrow keys also walk, as well as A and D.
Does it work on a phone or with a controller?
No. You aim with the mouse and fire with its buttons, so it needs a keyboard and mouse.