Light Cycles

You never stop. The disc under you goes forward at the round's pace whatever you press, and the only things you choose are when to turn and when to dash. Every metre you ride lays a wall of light that ends whoever touches it, you included. A round is three heats on fresh arenas, so an early crash costs a third of it.

One heat

Each heat opens with three seconds of "Ready..." while every key is dead. Riders sit on a ring around the middle, all heading the same way round, so nobody meets head-on in the first seconds. Then GO.

• For the first 20 seconds after GO the discs ride at 8 m/s. After that the pace climbs steadily, to 12 m/s by the last seconds of a full heat.
• At 30 seconds the walls start closing in. "Walls close in" goes up with a blinking red line where the border will land three seconds later; then the border steps 2 m inward on every side, and anyone left outside it is out. It repeats every five seconds until the box is down to 12 m across.
• A heat ends when one rider is left, or after 75 seconds. A few seconds of standings, then the next.

Each heat pays a point for every rider you outlast. The round goes to the best total over the three, and a tie goes to whoever did better in the latest heat.

Steering

• A and D turn you 90 degrees, one turn per tap. Holding a key does not keep turning.
• Two taps the same way in quick succession, within 2.5 m of the first corner, make a tight U-turn. You come back half a metre beside the wall you just laid, too close for anybody to fit between.
• Q, Dash gives you double speed for 0.4 seconds, then takes four seconds to recharge. Your wall keeps drawing the whole way.

There is no jump and no brake. The camera turns with you; C swaps to a higher view that turns with you too. The walls behind you only show on the minimap, which stays north-up, draws every wall in its rider's colour and marks which way each rider is heading. It starts switched off on a phone, so turn it on in Settings.

What ends you

Any wall of light, yours or anyone's, and the border. The walls of riders who have crashed stay deadly until the heat ends, so the arena only ever gets more crowded. Discs pass straight through each other; only light kills. Two riders who cut through each other's walls at the same moment both go out.

Riding to win

• The cut-off is the whole game. Ride alongside a rival, dash to get a length ahead, then turn across their line.
• Coil with U-turns. Riding back and forth in tight lanes beside your own wall keeps you in a small patch and saves the open floor for later, when the box is shrinking and the pace is up.
• Check the minimap before every turn. The wall that gets you is usually one you rode past ten seconds earlier.
• Be well inside the arena by 30 seconds. Each step takes 2 m off every side, and a rider running along the edge can have the border land on them mid-turn.
• Use the dash to get out, not just to attack. When two walls are closing on the gap ahead, double speed is often the only way through.
• Turn earlier as the heat goes on. At 12 m/s you cover 1.2 m every tenth of a second, so a turn that was comfortable at the start is a crash by the end.

Arena size

The arena is 40 m across with two riders and grows by 4 m for every rider after that: 48 m at four, 64 m at eight and 96 m at sixteen. The pace and the shrinking schedule are the same at every size, so a four-player box reaches its smallest right at the buzzer, while a sixteen-player box is still 60 m across at the end.