REWIND

REWIND is a puzzle-platformer where failing is the move. You have a few seconds to reach the goal. When an attempt ends — the clock runs out, you touch spikes, a shark gets you, or you press END — it comes back as a ghost that repeats exactly what you did, alongside your next try. Ghosts are solid: they hold plates down, you can stand on them, and they lift you when they jump. The trick is to fail in the right way, then use yourself.

What's in it

100 rooms in eleven sets: the first rooms and the ones after them (a snow room and a Christmas room among them), a past self in your way, switches that stay on (and a Halloween room), the solar system with each planet's own gravity, the outdoors (a meadow, a forest in the rain, the sea, the desert, a volcano), portals, a shark that keeps to a beat, rooms about who goes first and who holds what, portals again, and a last set with everything at once.

A room editor: paint a room with every piece the game has (walls, spikes, crumbling floor, plates, doors, switches, portals, sharks), set the clock, the ghosts, the gravity and the look, test it, and beat it yourself to make it ready. Up to 40 rooms, kept on your device.

Characters: a rabbit, a mouse, an alien, a bird and a fish, each with its own goal — or the plain blocks (CHARACTERS / BLOCKS in the pause menu).

UNDO LAST takes back your last ghost. HOLD fast-forwards the waiting.

Best scores in every room (fewest ghosts, fastest run). No medals, no accounts, no sign-in.

How ghosts work

Every attempt is recorded input by input. When it ends, a ghost replays it from the start of your next attempt, step for step, for exactly as long as the attempt lasted. A ghost standing on a plate keeps that door open. A ghost in a doorway blocks it. A ghost that jumps under you lifts you. Each room allows a few ghosts; the best routes use the fewest, and some rooms need none.

Controls

Touch: the pad at the bottom left moves, JUMP is at the bottom right. Above them: END (ends the attempt now), UNDO LAST, CLEAR and HOLD (fast-forward).

Keyboard: ← → or A / D to move · Space, W or ↑ to jump · E ends the attempt · Z undoes the last ghost · C clears the room (press it twice) · hold F or Shift to fast-forward · Esc or P for the menu. Click once in the game first, then play.

Saves

Progress, best scores and the rooms you build stay in your browser, on this device. Another browser or another device starts fresh, and clearing the site's data clears them.

Made for a phone held upright; it plays on a PC too.

By Boxlightgames. Typefaces: Michroma, Chakra Petch and Share Tech Mono, under the SIL Open Font License.