Infinite Ascent
Wind
A constant sideways shove, 10 to 16 units a second, for the whole band. A wooden sign hangs off a platform just below the entrance showing which way it blows. That sign is the only warning you get, and it is enough if you actually look at it.
The zones
The tower is cut into bands, and each one rewrites something. A meter at the top tells you how deep into the current zone you are, or how long until the next one lands, tinted to match. Updated October 2026.
Zones get laid down ahead of you as the tower builds. You get a warm-up before the first one, then eighteen to thirty-six units of normal climbing between each. They arm a moment after you cross in and hold for a minimum stretch, so clipping the corner of one to skip it does not work. You always know when you are in one: a banner, the whole frame changes colour, and the weather turns.
This sign hangs on a platform just below a wind zone. The arrow points the way the gust is going to push you. One jump of warning is all you get, so use it: start drifting into the wind before you cross, and the first jump inside is free.
Freeze
Your movement drops to half speed and your top speed to just under three quarters. The sky goes cold blue, snow comes down, the climber turns the same colour. Nothing pushes you here. You just cannot correct fast enough any more, and ordinary gaps get mean.
Heat Wave
The opposite problem. You move 40% faster with a third more top speed, so you skate. Embers drift up through a red sky. Almost nobody falls short in a heat zone; they overshoot.
Tiny
You shrink to 60% and everything about you goes up by roughly a fifth: speed, top speed, jump height. Smaller, faster, springier. Easy to thread a gap, very hard to stop.
Giant
You get a fifth bigger and every platform shrinks to 60% of its width. Your movement is untouched. The landings just got smaller, and you just got worse at hitting them.
Blizzard
Wind that flips direction every two to four seconds, slowed movement, and a darkened screen. You only meet this one by failing a challenge gate, so it always arrives at the worst possible moment.
Topsy-Turvy
Left is right. The camera sways, the screen goes magenta, and your hands do exactly the wrong thing for about a second before they catch up. Also a punishment for missing a gate. Also extremely funny to watch someone else play.
Reward runs
What you get for clearing a gate: 120 units of tower packed with one kind of pad, either warps or side-boosters or springs, with jump boosts scattered through it. The jackpot version throws in all three and rains coins on you.
The gates
Your first gate lands at 500 points and it is kind: three keys, eight seconds. It pays in jump boosts, and once in a while it hands you eight at once and rains coins down the screen while you sit there grinning. Every gate after that wants ten keys in seventeen seconds, with four spares scattered around in case you fumble one.
Clear a gate and the tower opens into a reward run. Miss one and you get a blizzard or your controls flipped, parked directly in your path. No warning, no negotiation.
Keys hang above platforms and restock ahead of you as you climb, so the hunt travels with you instead of sitting in one spot. They never spawn on breakable platforms, which is the one mercy in the whole system.