Eye of the Sphinx

Running down the hall is the easy part: at full speed the 110 m takes about 22 seconds of green light. The round is decided by when you take your hand off the key and where you are standing when you do. There is no second life.

The lights

The Sphinx keeps its own rhythm, and the glowing rings on the statues change colour with it.

• Green lasts 2.5 to 4.5 seconds. One green in four is a double-take, and the head comes back round after about a second.
• Yellow lasts under a second. The head swings round, the rings turn amber, and FREEZE! goes up in the middle of the screen with a horn. Let go of every key during yellow and you are safe, even though your body takes a moment to slide to a halt.
• Red lasts 2.2 to 3.5 seconds. Any movement the Sphinx can see is a lightning strike, and you are out. Still holding forward when red lands counts as moving, and so do pressing a direction again, jumping, sliding and being shoved.

The first runner through the Pharaoh's Gate strikes the gong, and the hall changes pace for everyone still in it: greens drop to one or two seconds and reds stretch to between three and nearly five. Whatever light is up when the gong rings ends within a second.

The round runs 80 seconds but ends as soon as only one runner is left in the hall, so with two players the first finish or the first strike ends it. Finishers are placed in the order they crossed, then everyone still running by how far they got, then anyone struck by lightning, the latest first.

Shadows

Six statues stand along the hall on alternating sides, ten from nine players. Each throws a shadow: the strip of floor directly behind it on the line from the Sphinx, about two metres wide, running back toward the start. Inside it the red light cannot see you, and you can keep walking on red as long as you stay in it. The last statue stands about 7 m short of the gate, so the final stretch is always open.

Two skills

• Q, Sand Shove (1.2 s). Hits rivals within 2.4 m in a wide cone in front of you, throws them hard and stuns them briefly. It does not move you, so on red it is safe for you and fatal for anyone it throws into the open. On yellow it does nothing lasting, because their slide comes to rest and counts as stopping.
• E, Sand Slide (3.5 s). A fast slide the way you are facing, well over twice running speed for a moment. A slide started before red may finish sliding into red; one started on red is movement.

How the good ones run

• Let go on the yellow call, not on the red. Under a second is your whole margin.
• Treat the first second of every green as possibly all of it.
• Slide whenever it is ready on green. It beats running, and since a slide begun before red may finish, it costs nothing as long as you release forward on the call.
• Use the yellow to reach shade. A statue a few metres ahead is one slide away, and once in its shadow you can edge forward through the whole red.
• Do not stand just ahead of a rival when red comes. Their shove reaches 2.4 m in front of them and nothing beside or behind, so level with them or behind them is safe.
• Shove on red. You are standing still, so it costs you nothing, and the runner in front is thrown into the light.
• After the gong, run in short bursts. A green is barely long enough for a slide and a few steps.

Bigger fields

Everyone starts side by side on the start line, closer together the more there are. With nine or more runners the hall has ten statues instead of six, some in pairs.