Skyts

DON'T SLOW DOWN

You're already going too fast to think. Good: thinking is slower than you.

The wall on your left is a floor if you commit. The gap ahead is a shortcut if you fire now. The corner is free if you dive into it and let it spit you out the other side.

And when you've already jumped, when you already know it's too short and there's nothing left under you — burn the rush. Thirteen metres, swallowed in a fifth of a second, at three times your cruising pace.

It doesn't leave you fast. It leaves you on the other side. After that, you have to earn it again.

TIME TRIAL — YOU AND THE NUMBER

The track is yours. No one to race, no one to blame.

Your best time stays behind as a ghost, and it sets off when you do: half a second ahead, only better, never hesitating once. Catch it. Then go make it faster, and start losing to yourself all over again.

Or send out the world record's ghost, and watch exactly which metre it takes your time. Bronze, silver, gold: the medals wait for whoever gets under the right times, and gold isn't given away.

RACE — FIVE OTHERS, ONE CLOCK

Six on the same line, and the clock belongs to the server, not to you.

Nothing restarts. You fall, you get back up, and it keeps ticking — so a race isn't won by never falling. It's won by losing the least time getting back up.

The others are beside you the whole way, as ghosts. You don't find out afterwards at which metre it got away from you. You watch it happen while it happens.

PARCEL — FORTY-FIVE SECONDS, THEN IT BLOWS

A bomb on the track. Whoever carries it is the slowest thing in the corridor, and everyone behind them knows exactly where they are.

One touch and it changes hands. Hold it too long and it was yours.

Pass it on. Take it back at the worst possible moment. Cross the gate with nothing left on the fuse and listen to it stop. Five parcels a round — most deliveries wins.

Here, the fastest doesn't win.

SIX TRACKS

• Skyline Run — a corridor suspended at cruising altitude, stepping down between the lasers.
• Crosstown Rush — an avenue between the facades, walls to run and boosters above a real street.
• Rampart Run — the walkway of a besieged rampart: blades, axes, rolling logs and volleys of arrows.
• Dockside Dash — a port that keeps working while you run: cranes, barrels, trucks, and three basins to clear.
• Neon Drop — at night, in the rain, rooftop to rooftop across Hong Kong, always downhill, all the way to the elevated metro.
• Graveyard Shift — the Halloween track: a crypt rampart above a sea of fog, and everything that guards the dead.

DAILY CHALLENGE — ONE TRACK, EVERYONE, TWENTY-FOUR HOURS

Every day, one track is drawn at random. The same for everyone, and a leaderboard that starts from zero.

Finish it and you leave with a crate. You don't have to win: you just have to make it.

DRESS YOUR GHOST

Crates open in the game, no key needed. Inside: hats, eyewear, tops, bottoms, shoes and hologram colors, from common to mythic — and the other runners see you wearing them.

The odds are shown in the game, crate by crate. The studio sells no crates and no keys: everything is earned by running. Skins, on the other hand, can be traded between players and sold on the Steam Community Market.

For Halloween, from October 26 to November 1, the daily crate becomes the Halloween Crate: twelve limited-edition skins, from the Pumpkin Head to The Grin.

YOUR MUSIC

Skyts is meant to be run to your own music. Start Spotify, YouTube Music or YouTube: the song shows up mid-race, and you can change it without taking your eyes off the track.

THE ONLY FAIR THING IS THE TRACK

It does exactly the same thing on every attempt. Every laser, every drop, every second.

So when it goes wrong, there's no one to blame, and you already know it. You just want to go back.