Tuxedo Panic

Hop your colony north across the drifting pack ice.

Tuxedo Panic is an arcade crossing game set on the Antarctic ice. Every floe you land on is moving, the lane above it runs the other way, and the ice is not always solid. Read the gap, then go — one swipe, one hop, anywhere on the screen.

FILL EVERY NEST A floe is not done when one bird gets across. Every nest cut into the cliff needs a bird in it, and a bird that makes it stays there for the rest of the floe. The queue waiting on the beach is exactly how many crossings you have left to make.

AN HOUR OF THE DAY, EVERY FLOE Dawn, clear noon, sunset, dusk, aurora, whiteout — six skies that come round again a little further into the night each time. Every floe north adds one new thing to deal with. Seals haul out on the shelves. Thin ice cracks underfoot and gives way. Orcas breach in open water. The shipping lane opens and the boats do not slow down.

THREE WAYS TO PLAY Easy gives you six lives, slower ice and nothing in the sky or under it. Normal is the full crossing. Hard brings skuas working the lanes from above and, from floe 12, a submarine surfacing in the nests themselves on a rhythm you can learn and time your run against — on three lives, for triple points.

SOMETHING WORTH THE DETOUR A fish is points. An egg is a life back. A bubble hides you from everything that hunts for ten seconds — carry it and spend it when you choose. And the purple fish is the rare one: throw it, and the seals leave their lanes and crowd round it while you cross behind them.

NOWHERE IS QUITE SAFE Every ice shelf has two lanes — a walkway, and a row of snow huts you can duck inside where nothing can reach you. Catching your breath costs you time, and time is score.

DRAWN AS IT PLAYS There is not a single image or sound file in the app. Every penguin, floe, orca and note is drawn or synthesised while you play, which is why it fits in under half a megabyte.

ONE PRICE, NO STRINGS You buy it once and that is the end of it. No ads. No in-app purchases. No subscription. No accounts, no tracking, no analytics, and nothing to sign up for. Your top ten stays on your device, under names you choose. It plays on a plane.

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