Clockspire — Wind Up, Freeze Time, Ascend

What is Clockspire — Wind Up, Freeze Time, Ascend

Clockspire is a vertical arcade climber played on one tall screen. Each floor is a stack of ledges joined by hanging chains, and at the top stands the Clockwright, who tears cogs off the machinery and hurls them down. The cogs bounce, land on a ledge and then roll along it, so the tower is never still for long. Your target on every floor is the pulsing Heart of the Clock, sitting on the topmost ledge. There are thirty-six floors in six tiers, each adding a hazard, and an endless mode after the thirty-sixth. A run lasts five to fifteen minutes.

The twist is the chrono watch. You start a run with one charge and can hold two; pressing F stops the tower dead for four seconds, and while time is frozen the hazards that would kill you shatter at a touch, paying a hundred and fifty points for a cog. From the second tier a portcullis blocks the last chain of the floor and has to be opened first: ring a bell, turn two pressure valves within six seconds, or strike three chimes in the order the tower flashes. Clearing floors earns experience, and each level gained buys an upgrade pip.

How to play

1. Move with the arrow keys or A and D, and press up or down at the foot of a chain to climb it. On a phone, use the six buttons at the bottom.
2. A jump clears about seventy pixels and the ledges sit eighty-six apart, so chains are the only way up until you spend upgrade points on the spring.
3. Jump over a rolling cog for a hundred points, stomp the wind-up mice from above, and collect the brass ticks along the ledges for fifty points each.
4. Press F or X to freeze time when a cog is about to reach you, then walk straight through it. The frozen hazard shatters and you keep climbing.

Strategies that work

• Treat the chains as the map. The ledges alternate which side their gap falls on, so the chain you need is often on the far side from where you arrive. Look up first: if a rolling cog guards it, waiting two seconds on the ledge below beats being knocked off halfway.
• Losing a life drops you to the ground floor of the same tower, not to where you fell, so a hit on the sixth ledge costs the whole ascent. Above the middle of a floor, spend a chrono charge to walk through danger instead of hoarding it. The charge is worth far less than the climb.
• You get exactly one chrono charge per run, and the first spare watch appears only on floor seven, in the Gear Galleries. Anything spent on floors one to six leaves you empty until then, so dodge on foot early and keep the charge for the moment two cogs converge on you.
• The two pressure valves must be turned within six seconds of each other, but the best route between them takes under three and a half seconds on every floor that uses them. Pick the chain nearest the first valve before touching it. Freezing time also holds the pressure.
• The time bonus is thirty points per second under par, and par is sixty-three seconds on floor one and a hundred and five from floor twenty-five. A shattered cog pays a hundred and fifty, so hunting hazards only pays while time is already frozen. Never freeze to farm, and never linger on a cleared ledge.

A little history

Clockspire was written for puzzle-me.com and has no earlier version. It belongs to the family of single-screen climbing arcade games: the level fits on one tall screen and the threat falls from above while the player works upwards. The horological vocabulary is real: a verge is an old escapement, a mainspring stores the energy that drives a clock, and a chime is what a tower strikes on the hour. The design turns on one number: a jump reaches about seventy pixels and the ledges are eighty-six apart, so climbing is a choice of route rather than a timed leap, and the freeze buys the seconds for it.

Frequently asked questions