PolyBranch

Overview

Every cluster of limbs barring the corridor is grown, not placed: a single branch sprouts from one edge of the sixteen-sided tunnel and recursively forks into a fractal thicket of triangles, the whole cluster scaling toward you as the layer rushes in. PolyBranch, Greg Batha's open-source entry to the 2012 GitHub Game Off, renders that procedural geometry in Processing.js and asks only that you keep a small circle clear as the wall-grown branches lunge past. Movement is reskinned as a camera shift — the dot stays central while the tunnel pivots around it — so playing feels less like flying a ship and more like steering the corridor away from yourself. The pace is engineered to climb: each level swaps in more branches and a steeper speed, and a single brush against any triangle ends the run, which makes clean reading of depth the entire skill. It suits players who want a pure, no-powerup test of judging distance and threading gaps under rising pressure, and the personal best sits in local storage between sessions so there is always a margin to chase.

How to Play

Press Start and the first layer rushes in. Steer with the Arrow keys or WASD — Up and Down nudge the tunnel one way, Left and Right the other — and the central dot carries momentum, so short taps hold a cleaner line than long holds. Each active branch cluster you survive adds 100 to the score; cross a threshold (500, then 2000, 4000, 6500 and onward) and the next level adds branches and quickens the scroll. Pause with P and start a fresh run with R. One touch against any branch ends the game, and your highest score is retained in the browser between attempts.

Tips & Strategy

Read the branches at depth, not at the rim. Because every cluster swells as it approaches, the safe lane is decided two layers out, and reacting only when a limb is already large means you steer straight into its neighbour. Favour light taps over held keys: the dot carries inertia and the tunnel overshoots further than you expect, so a long hold will clip the far wall on the exit. When a level adds branches and they multiply, aim each time for the widest open wedge rather than chasing the closest gap, since the limbs fork inward and the near lane tends to close last. Treat the early levels as calibration — the speed you meet at level eight is several times the opening pace, so build a soft hand before the thicket gets dense, and restart the instant you feel yourself mashing keys, because panic inputs are exactly what the rising tempo is designed to provoke.