painting the beach
You lose a heart (you have 3) and your bucket spills. Grab it back before the next wave. On your last heart, the tide wins.
Space or Shift isThe wave button is a short burst. It recharges in a second. Use it to reach a pearl and get out.
Each wave breaks first at the middle of the beach and the break runs away from there along the whole coast: up the screen above it, on into the cove, and down it below, on into the harbor and the funfair. Dash that way into the foam as it breaks and you ride it instead of getting caught, bucket and all, picking up whatever lies in its path. Keep leaning that way to race along it. Ease off and the wave carries you up the sand. Dash or push up the beach to jump off.
Packed wet sand by the water is quick. Loose dry sand up the beach is slow, and so is wading. The quick strip climbs with the tide, so the fastest way along the coast is always right beside the waves.
Some bottles hold a treasure map: an X appears on the dry sand. Stand on it to dig up a chest, then carry what's in it home. The volleyball players spike a ball out now and then. Get under it before it lands (+6). The ice cream truck hands you a cone, and the sugar rush makes any sand quick for 10 seconds.
Past the break you swim. It's slower, but the waves can't catch you out there, and whitewater just pushes you back toward the beach. Keep clear of a shark whose fin is up. A bite costs a heart and sinks your bucket. Climb onto the big rock of an outcrop to rest, and a pearl grows there now and then. When someone far out waves for help, swim to them and tow them back to the sand for +25 and a heart.
The tide rises. A lifeguard's whistle means big waves: run up the beach. A gull tagged THIEF! is after treasure on the sand. Step inside its ring before it fills, for +5.
Walk off the top or bottom of the painting and the shore carries on into the next one. North is a rocky cove. Its rocks are dry ground until the rising tide climbs over them, and their pools keep finds. A big set's pull-back bares the reef. South is a harbor. Its pier stays dry out over the water, and the waves reach each side of it at different times. Past the harbor is the funfair, where rubber ducks lost from the fair wash up in the surf. The sea is the same everywhere. Pearls turn up more often out there, but your camp stays on the beach, so the walk home is longer.
At the funfair a swing ride stands on the tideline. When it stops to load, walk into one of the empty chairs. As it spins up you fly out over the surf, picking up whatever you pass, and the foam can't reach you. Lean out or in to swing your chair, and grab the brass ring when it hangs out over the sea (+10). DashThe wave button lets go: you're flung across the sand, and the longer the throw, the more it scores. Land in a breaking wave going its way and you ride it for a bonus.
WASD or arrows to move. Esc pauses. M mutes. C saves a postcard. R paints a new beach, between runs.
Put your left thumb down anywhere on the left half of the screen and slide it to walk. The wave button on the right dashes. The camera button saves a postcard of the painting, and the pause button stops the tide.
Turn your phone sideways
the beach is a wide paintingiPhone Safari will not hide its bars for a game. Add Low Tide to your Home Screen and it opens with the whole screen.