Climbers

The game consists of several rounds where the players simultaneously attempt to guess a secret word or phrase letter by letter. A successful round ensures your mountaineer climbs up the face. However, an unsuccessful round means an unwelcome descent. The first to the top wins! If 2 or more players reach the summit at the same time then the player that would potentially reach the highest altitude wins.

For each round use your mouse to do 1 of 4 possible actions:

• Select a single letter by clicking on one of the letters from the pyramid.
• Attempt to guess the whole word or phrase by clicking on the blue button with a double up arrows. You have one attempt at this for every uncompleted word or phrase. Be careful! A wrong guess means starting again from the bottom or from your holdfast lower down the mountain face if you used one (see below).
• Secure yourself to the mountain face with a holdfast using the yellow button with the holdfast symbol. Every player has 3 holdfasts available.
• To skip a move.

Every letter has a certain point value based on its location in the pyramid. The letter at the top of the pyramid has a value of 8 points; the letters in the second row are worth 4 points; the letters in the third row 2 points and the letters in the bottom row are worth 1 point. The point value of the letter determines how many meters the mountaineer climbs up or down the face. The individual types of move are scored as follows:

• Selection of a single letter – if the player selects successfully, the mountaineer climbs up a number of meters determined by the value of the letter and the amount of times the letter appears in the word or phrase (e. g. if the letter A has a value of 2 points and occurs 3 times in the answer, the player climbs up by 6 meters). By contrast, if the player guesses wrong then the mountaineer moves down the face by the amount of the the most valuable letter (i.e. 8 meters).
• Guessing the whole word or phrase – after successfully guessing the whole word or phrase the player gains points for the 5 most valuable letters in the word or phrase (i.e. those with the highest value-times-occurrence ratio). But remember, a wrong guess means starting again from the bottom or from your holdfast lower down the face if you used one!
• Secure yourself with a holdfast – the mountaineer stays put.
• Skip a move – the mountaineer moves down the face by an amount of meters determined by the most valuable letter (i.e. 8 meters).

Apart from points (altitude), the number of moves needed to reach the summit is measured in the top-right corner display. This number is used for calculating high scores.