Tips for faster runs
A Daily Grapple course takes most players between twenty seconds and a minute and a half. The best players finish the same course in a fraction of that. Here is where the time goes.
1. Look before you move
The clock only starts on your first move, jump or grab. Stand on the start ledge and look at the course first: where the flag is, which hooks lead to it, where the saws are. Thirty seconds of looking can save hundreds of attempts.
2. Restart early
R restarts instantly. If the start of a run went badly, restart instead of finishing it: a slow first half rarely turns into a good time. Your best time is all that counts, so attempts are free.
3. Let go on the way up
You are fastest at the bottom of a swing. Let go just after it, while you are rising, and you keep the speed and gain some height. Letting go at the very top of a swing leaves you with no speed at all; letting go on the way down throws you at the floor.
4. Skip hooks
A course is built around one guaranteed chain of hooks, plus optional ones around it. Fast routes often skip a hook or two: a long, high release can carry you past a hook that a careful route would grab. Grabbing the same hook again and again does not build speed, so the line matters more than button-mashing.
5. Choose your hook
The highlighted hook is the one the GRAB button takes, and it is a sensible choice, not always the fastest. With the mouse you can point at any hook in reach and take that one instead. Choosing a hook the game would not pick is where much of the routing time is won.
6. Use the special hooks the right way
- Sling (amber): grab it while it is still ahead of you, then let go to be thrown forward past it.
- Reel (green): hold on to be lifted, and let go near the top.
- Zipline: riding to the end is safe; letting go early can be faster if the next hook is close.
- Updraft: let go inside the column and ride it up instead of climbing.
- Boost pads and springs: land on them on purpose. They are free speed.
7. Learn the timing of moving saws
Piston saws and saw tracks move on the run clock, so they are in the same place at the same moment of every attempt. Once you know when a saw rests, you can arrive exactly then instead of waiting.
8. Race a ghost
Click a row on a leaderboard to race that player's ghost, and you can see where their route differs from yours. While you play, live ghosts show the other people on the same course right now.
9. Chase the medals
Every daily course has bronze, silver and gold times, worked out from the course itself. Bronze is within reach of almost everyone who finishes, silver is around the middle of the leaderboard, and gold is near the top tenth. On older courses (Older maps in the menu, or the History screen) they make good practice targets.
10. Play the weekly too
The weekly championship is one longer, harder course for the whole week. It counts double for the monthly season, so a good weekly time is worth two good days.