Cinder Climb

You are the last live ember in a cold chimney. The only way out is up, and the dark is already at your heels.

Run, jump, and bounce off the walls to chain landings. Every ledge you touch inside the combo window pushes your multiplier higher, and the multiplier is applied to every metre you gain, so a clean unbroken ascent is worth many times a careful one. Stone ledges hold. Cinder ledges glow, shake, and drop away under you. Frost ledges are slick. Higher up they start sliding sideways.

Your warmth meter is your health and your lantern at the same time. It burns down constantly and faster the higher you get. As it drains, the pool of light around you shrinks until you are jumping half blind. Drifting embers and the big orange ledges are the only way to refuel, and they are usually not on the fastest path, so every run is a small argument with yourself about greed.

A run lasts about thirty to ninety seconds. You die when the rising dark touches you or when your glow finally gutters out. Your best score is saved, and beating it mid climb sets the screen off.

No levels, no unlocks, no upgrades. Just one number to beat and a restart on a single key.