About the Speed Climb
Speed climbing is a sprint up a wall. Here it becomes a test of quick, accurate choices: thirty holds, each on the left or the right, and a clock that does not stop.
How it works
The wall shows the next several holds above your climber. The one you need now is at the bottom, larger than the rest and ringed in yellow. If it is on the left, tap the left half of the screen. If it is on the right, tap the right.
Get it right and the climber moves up and the next hold drops into place. Get it wrong and the climber slips. For most of a second nothing you tap will register, and then you can try again.
The holds are random. Sometimes they alternate neatly, and sometimes the same side comes up three or four times running. That is the trap: your hands fall into a left-right rhythm and the wall does not follow it.
Climbing faster
Read ahead. You can see six or seven holds at once. Do not look only at the ringed one. Take in the next three as a sequence, "left, left, right", and tap them as a group.
Use two hands, one for each side. Your thumbs never have to cross the screen.
Do not guess. A slip costs about as long as four or five correct grabs. Being certain is quicker than being fast.
Break the rhythm habit. When you notice two holds on the same side, say it to yourself. Naming the pattern stops your hands from alternating out of habit.
Speed up gradually. Start at a pace where you make no mistakes at all, then push.
Gold needs about four clean grabs a second. For choice-reaction HTML5 games, that is quick, and very satisfying when it flows.