Draw Climber

How to play Draw Climber

Draw Climber is a physics racing game where you draw the legs. Your racer is a little square block with no way to move on its own. Whatever you draw in the box at the bottom of the screen is bolted to the middle of the block and spins like a wheel. A good leg digs into the ground and pushes the block over stairs, walls, bumps and pits; a bad one wobbles, scrapes and gets stuck. Two rival climbers race on the same track, and only first place clears the level.

1. Look at the drawing box at the bottom. The red dot is the centre of your block and the pale square shows its size.
2. Draw one stroke around the dot: a cross, a star, a long line, a zigzag, anything you like.
3. Lifting your finger or mouse attaches the leg and starts a 3-2-1 countdown. Then the race begins.
4. Watch the track ahead. Before a tall wall, draw a longer leg. Before a low tunnel, draw a smaller one.
5. Reach the chequered flag before the blue and purple climbers to win and unlock the next level.

Tips to win every Draw Climber race

• Spokes beat circles. A round wheel rolls smoothly on flat ground but cannot grip a step. Shapes with several spokes, like a cross or a star, hook onto ledges and pull the block up.
• Bigger is faster, until it isn't. Longer legs cover more ground with every turn, so a large cross is quick on open track. In a tunnel, though, a big leg jams against the ceiling. Redraw a small cross the moment you see a roof coming.
• Make walls easy. A wall taller than your leg cannot be climbed. Draw spokes that reach well past the block's edge, then switch back to your fast leg once you are over.
• Pits have floors. You never fall off the world, but you do have to climb back out. A long-spoked leg gets out of a deep pit much faster than a short one.
• Keep the leg balanced. A single line drawn off to one side makes the block hop and stall. Draw through the red dot so the shape is roughly balanced around it.
• Redraw early. A new leg appears instantly and keeps your speed, but it needs a moment to grip. Switching a couple of metres before an obstacle is better than switching against it.
• Read the hints. When your leg is wrong for what is coming, a message tells you: "Low ceiling ahead" or "Tall wall ahead".

15 levels of stairs, walls, pits and tunnels

Every level is a hand-tuned side-scrolling course built from a fixed seed, so it is the same each time you play and you can learn it. The first levels are gentle: bumps and a few low steps that almost any leg can handle. Then walls appear, then pits with floors you need to climb out of, then low tunnels that punish giant legs. From the middle levels on, a single shape will not get you through and you have to switch legs on the fly. The rival climbers switch too: they draw smaller legs for tunnels and long spokes for walls, so later races are close.

Why drawing the legs is so much fun

Draw-the-leg climbing games became a mobile hit because they turn a doodle into a machine. You are not steering, you are designing, and the design changes every few seconds. That makes Draw Climber a quick creative puzzle as much as a race: you look at a staircase, picture which shape will grip it, sketch it in a second and see straight away whether you were right. It trains quick spatial thinking and planning ahead, and it is great fun to try silly shapes just to see how they move. Our version is original, runs in the browser on any device and uses real physics, so every leg you invent behaves differently.

Enjoy physics drawing games? Solve brain teasers with a single line in Draw Puzzle, test your drawing speed against the clock in Quick Draw, or relax and sketch anything you like on the free canvas in Draw Online.