Speedhook

What is Speedhook?

Speedhook is a portrait-oriented arcade game built around one gesture: holding an object so a rubber-band magnet drags the hero toward it. Blocks, coins, the spiky red gears and even rockets qualify as anchors. The longer the pull, the more speed is stored, which turns distance into fuel rather than a penalty.

The world is neon pixel art that stretches out with no speed cap, and rockets cross it, rebound off the edges and keep accelerating. Survival depends on momentum. Only a hero glowing gold travels fast enough to shatter red gears and rockets, and clipping one while slow costs armor. When the last of the armor goes, the run is finished.

Five heroes reshape the same loop, each carrying its own hit points and a separate ability, and gold gathered mid-run unlocks more of them. A billboard standing inside the world carries three tasks per level. An interactive tutorial runs on the first attempt and can be replayed later from Settings.

How to play

Every run starts with a hold. Pressing and holding a block, coin, gear or rocket engages the magnet and reels the hero in; letting go preserves the momentum, so the flight continues in the same direction. Speed is earned by pulling from a distance, not by tapping quickly. Small tugs never build enough velocity to trigger the golden glow.

The glow is the permission slip to attack. While gold, the hero can break red gears and rockets instead of being hurt by them, and Vital in particular regains a hit point each time she destroys one of those hazards at speed. Touch a red gear while travelling slowly and armor is lost. Run out of armor and the attempt ends immediately, whatever the score.

Each level hands out three jobs, written on a billboard planted in the world: smash something, hook something, collect something, hit a speed or an altitude, or finish a run as a named hero. Tasks can be skipped for gold, but that price climbs with every skip, so clearing them honestly is cheaper in the long term.

Controls

Input is deliberately thin. On a phone, one finger does the work: touch and hold any hookable object to pull toward it and lift the finger to fly free. Nothing sits on screen during play, so the thumb never covers a button or a menu.

Pausing is its own gesture rather than a button. Swipe up from the bottom edge of the screen to the middle and release there to stop the action. On desktop the mouse stands in for the finger, with the same hold-and-release rhythm driving the magnet.

The game is laid out for portrait play, and a fullscreen button sits underneath the frame for phone sessions. Anyone who wants a refresher can relaunch the interactive tutorial from Settings without starting a fresh account or run.

Tips for your first run

Treat the golden glow as a state to chase rather than a lucky accident. It appears when velocity is high enough, and velocity comes from long pulls, so the instinct to hook nearby objects repeatedly works against the hero. Aim for the farthest anchor in reach and let the magnet do the rest.

Rockets are the best and worst anchors in the game. Catching one is a strong way to gain speed, but arrival speed matters: reach it fast and it can be destroyed, reach it slowly and it deals damage. Red gears follow the same logic and should never be approached at a crawl.

• Pull from maximum range instead of tapping in short bursts.
• Use the gold glow as the signal to attack gears and rockets.
• Hook rockets for a speed boost, but only if the approach is fast.
• Clear billboard tasks rather than skipping them, since skip prices rise.
• On a phone, switch to fullscreen portrait before the first run.
• Replay the tutorial from Settings if the magnet timing feels unclear.

Content and replayability

Five heroes cover different approaches. Neo carries three hit points and has no special trick. Vital has two and heals one point whenever she destroys a red gear or rocket at speed. Volt has two, and every coin becomes a dash along the current flight direction. Flux has one hit point but the strongest magnet and quickest acceleration. Tick has two and slows time whenever a rocket comes close.

Ten cities rotate one per run, each with its own landmarks: Singapore, Astana, Paris, New York, London, Tokyo, Dubai, Moscow, Shanghai and Sydney. Because the setting changes between attempts, the backdrop rarely repeats, and the endless world with no top speed keeps long runs escalating.

Levels each hold three tasks, achievements track broader milestones, and a nickname plus a demo leaderboard give runs somewhere to land. Skipping tasks costs gold that grows each time, so the economy nudges toward actually completing the bills posted in the world.

Presentation and performance

The look is neon over pixel art, with the golden hero glow doing most of the readability work: the shift in color is the warning that hazards have become targets. Red gears stay visually loud against the city backdrops so they read at speed, and the billboard that carries each level's three tasks sits inside the scene rather than in a menu.

The interface disappears entirely during play, which keeps the portrait frame clean and makes the swipe-to-pause gesture the only way out mid-run. Text and menus are available in Russian and English. The soundtrack is credited to Nurik bratan, and the project was built in Claude Code during the Slapjam #2 jam.

Delivery is HTML5 inside a browser frame, so there is nothing to install before the first hook. The fullscreen button beneath the frame is the recommended way to play on a phone in portrait.

Who should play it

Speedhook suits players who like one-thumb arcade games with a risk curve attached to a single input. The whole skill ceiling sits in judging distance and release timing, so anyone comfortable with hold-and-release mobile play can start immediately, and the tutorial covers the loop on the first run.

It also rewards the task-chasing temperament. Three jobs per level, achievements, a nickname and a leaderboard give structure to what is otherwise a pure momentum chase, and the five heroes with different hit points and abilities offer a reason to return once gold has been banked.

Players who want visible buttons, layered systems or a story will not find them here; the appeal is the gold glow, the rocket hooks and the escalating speed across ten rotating cities.