Climb a towering skyscraper one hand at a time, dodging slamming windows and falling flower pots.
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How to play
You climb the outside of a building one hand at a time, and the two hands are roped together. A hand can only move while the other is anchored on an open window, and the rope between them is short — so the climb is an alternation, with each reach pulling the trailing hand along behind it.
Windows open and close on a schedule, and only an open one can be gripped.
Reaching for a closed window fails and your hand slips.
The rope is a fixed few rows long. A reach that would stretch the hands further apart than that is simply not allowed.
When a reach pulls the rope taut, the trailing hand is dragged one row up toward the moving one — which is how you actually gain height.
Your body height is whichever hand is lower, so the trailing hand is what your progress is measured by.
If both hands end up off a ledge you fall and lose a life.
Hazards drop down the columns; one that hits you knocks a hand loose, which is fatal if it was your only grip.
Controls
Desktop: click or drag to move each hand up
Phone & tablet: tap and drag to climb (touch supported)
Game modes
Daily challenge climb
Endless mode
Practice mode
Tips & strategy
Climb with the rope, not against it. Reaching to full stretch drags your other hand up a row, so a deliberate long reach moves both hands — short cautious ones move only the leader.
You cannot over-extend, so a reach that looks too far is either legal or refused. The real risk is the window being shut, not the distance.
Watch the window above the one you want. Ledges close on a rhythm, so what matters is whether it will still be open when your hand arrives.
Your score is the lower hand. Racing one arm up the building achieves nothing until the rope brings the other with it.
Move sideways to dodge. You cannot duck, so the only answer to something falling down your column is to be in a different one.
Never break the one-hand rule voluntarily. It is also your safety line, and the moment neither hand has support you are falling.
Origins
High Rise revives Crazy Climber, released by Nichibutsu in 1980, in which you scale the outside of a skyscraper hand over hand.
The control scheme is the game: two joysticks, one per hand, each moving that hand independently. Climbing means alternating them in a rhythm, and a mistimed pair leaves you hanging by one arm. Windows slam shut on your fingers, residents drop flower pots, and a large ape turns up to swat at you. Almost no other game has asked the player's hands to do genuinely different things at once, and it remains oddly physical to play.
High Rise is an original free browser revival of the classic skyscraper-climbing arcade game, with daily, endless and practice modes. No download required.
A free, original browser game on PlayPendium. No download, no install.
