Secondhand Saves
Secondhand SavesToy Fort / Lighthouse Leaper / p. 01
Lighthouse Leaper box front: a red and white striped lighthouse on a small wooden jetty with a keeper in a coral hat, under the title in gold lettering.
Toy Fort

Lighthouse Leaper / A tower climb for browser, Windows and Android

Climb before the sea catches you.

Cling to the tower, kick off walls and bounce on gull nests to reach the lamp. The tide never stops rising, so neither can you.

Play in your browser Learn the climb →
The story behind the tower ↓ Meet the three places ↓
Fact sheetLighthouse Leaper

A one-button-at-a-time tower climb. Run, jump and cling up twelve lighthouse towers while a steady tide rises behind you. Your time sets your medal.

Meet the three places ↓
System
Browser, Windows, AndroidOriginal game
Towers
12 towers, 3 placesHarbor, Cliffs, Storm, plus a Keeper lesson.
Medals
Gold, Silver, BronzeSet by your time. Shells never change it.
Version
1.2.10
Controls
D-pad or stick moves and clings, south button jumps, Menu pausesUp climbs rope ladders. Down drops through awnings.
Browser keys
A D or arrows, W S for ladders, Space, Esc
Saves
Best times and shellsKept on your device.
Play / Download
Play in your browseror Windows ZIP (40 MB), Android APK (28 MB), itch.io

01 / The climb

Cling.
Kick. Climb.

There is one rule underneath all of it: stay above the water. Everything else is how you get up there.

The tide rises at a steady speed, and touching it ends the climb. Hold toward a rope wall to cling, then jump to kick up and away. Cracked ledges drop out from under you a second after you land. Gull nests send you high.

Reach the lamp at the top to finish. A tower takes 30 to 90 seconds, and your time sets the medal.

The sea is right behind you.

Last Lantern in the Storm place at night: the keeper mid-jump over wooden planks, with the sea lapping at the bottom of the tower and the tide tube on the right.
1Watch the tube.
  • TowerLast Lantern
  • PlaceStorm
  • WatchThe tide tube

The tall tube beside the tower shows you and the tide. The gap is your head start.

Touching the water ends the climb. Keep an eye on the gap.

First Light: the keeper jumping above a cracked plank, with the rope wall and its green tag running down the left side of the tower and a porthole on the wall.
2Find the rope.
  • TowerFirst Light
  • PlaceHarbor
  • MoveHold toward the rope

The rope wall runs down the left side of the tower. Hold toward it to cling, then jump to kick off.

Plain walls are slick. Look for the rope.

First Light: a red and white striped awning above the keeper, with wooden planks, a porthole and the tide tube on the right.
3Up through, down through.
  • TowerFirst Light
  • PlaceHarbor
  • MoveUp through, down to drop

Jump up through an awning. Hold down to drop back through it.

Shells are extra score. They never change your medal time.

What you will meet

Rope walls, cracked ledges, gull nests, awnings, rope ladders, shells, and a lamp at the very top.

Real screenshots from the game.

02 / Hands on the tower

How to climb.

Move and clingD-pad or stick
A
JumpSouth button
Menu
Pause

On a keyboard: A D or ← → to move, W S or ↑ ↓ for ladders and awnings, Space to jump, Esc to pause.

  1. Run, jump and cling.

    Hold toward a rope wall to cling. Jump off it to kick up and away.

  2. Beat the tide.

    It rises at a steady speed, a little faster in each place. Touch the water and the climb ends.

  3. Do not linger on cracks.

    Cracked ledges fall one second after you land on them.

  4. Bounce on nests.

    A gull nest sends you high. Land softly after.

  5. Light the lamp.

    Reach the lamp at the top to finish. Your time sets the medal.

  6. Grab shells.

    Shells are optional extra score. One point each.

03 / Three places

Harbor.
Cliffs. Storm.

Four towers in each place, and each place gets its own painted backdrop and a faster tide.

Harbor, First Light: the keeper beside a rope ladder that hangs from a plank, with more planks above and the tide tube on the right.
1

Harbor

Towers 01 to 04
  1. First Light
  2. Ropewalk
  3. Gull Quay
  4. Lantern Steps

Wide staging, a first kick, rope ladders and a first nest. A friendly place to learn the sea.

Hold up on a rope ladder to climb slowly.

Cliffs, Chalk Ladder: the keeper on a plank against a grey stone wall, with the tide tube on the right and water at the foot of the tower.
2

Cliffs

Towers 05 to 08
  1. Chalk Ladder
  2. Split Pinnacle
  3. Shearwater Rise
  4. High Shelf

Short wall runs, big gaps between lanes, and landings that have to be exact. Sliding and tipping planks start here.

On a tipping plank, stay on the low end for a second and it drops you.

Storm, Last Lantern at night in the rain: wooden planks and the keeper climbing the tower wall, with the sea below.
3

Storm

Towers 09 to 12
  1. Rain Barrel
  2. Squall Stitch
  3. Breaker Teeth
  4. Last Lantern

A long ascent with the fastest tide, cracked transfers and the tightest margins in the game.

Wet planks and gusts are new here. The Field Guide shows each one.

04 / Things you meet

The Field Guide.

Fifteen elements join the climb, from awnings and rope ladders to gusts and lightning. The Keeper keeps notes on every one.

The Lamp Keeper's Field Guide, page one of four: grip wall, awning, rope ladder and feather.
The Keeper's notes.

Grip wall, awning, rope ladder and feather are on page one. A feather gives you one extra jump in midair.

Open the Field Guide from the pause menu when something new shows up.

First Light: a yellow gull nest with a gull on a plank, and the keeper beside it.
Land on the nest.

A gull nest sends you high. Look for the yellow plank with a gull on it.

Land softly after a bounce. Steer before you steer anything else.

05 / Twelve lights

Every tower
has a real light.

Each climb ends at its own New England lighthouse. Three draw from Rhode Island and nine from Massachusetts. Land at the top and the lens lights up.

Last Lantern, lamp lit: the lighthouse and its island, with the results card above showing time and medal and the buttons See the coast, Climb again and Tower chart.
Lamp lit.

The camera pulls back from crown to base as the lens ignites. Your medal and best time slide in above the lighthouse.

Press any button to bring the results card up early.

The coast, revealed

Finish a tower and the whole lighthouse shows against its coast. The Tower chart lists the real lighthouse and town for each climb.

Harbor

  • 01Rose Island
  • 02Eastern Point
  • 03Scituate
  • 04Three Sisters

Cliffs

  • 05Beavertail
  • 06Marblehead
  • 07Nauset
  • 08Butler Flats

Storm

  • 09Gay Head
  • 10Sankaty Head
  • 11Graves Light
  • 12Block Island Southeast

The lamp is waiting

Your turn.

Play it right here in your browser, or take it with you on Windows or Android. Then go and light the lamp.

Play in your browser Windows ZIP Android APK

Your best times and shells save on your device.
Also on itch.io.

This version

1.2.10. All twelve towers cleared on a handheld, and every replay matched the Windows build.

Package sizes, hashes and credits

Windows ZIP, 39,849,005 bytes.
93bbd306743924d023c42de7d3b3ff11f7751077b2bd1729e2f447c42c328a0e

Android APK, 28,483,359 bytes.
3ff58ab3cfacf9fd59a54b95e8e7e897a5204c1765564c29791207ba3055ed53

Credits: built with Godot Engine (MIT). Fredoka and Nunito fonts (SIL OFL 1.1). Five controller prompts from Controller Icons, by Nicolae Berbece (CC0). Sound effects synthesized with ZzFX. Voice of the Lamp Keeper: Seafarer Wisdom.

Got stuck? Found something strange?
Tell us which tower and what happened.

Send player feedback →

After the feature / From the build journal

How the tower
got built.

Four test pieces on posts. Then a grey tower. Then a toy fort and a Keeper to teach it. Here are some turning points.

The plan

Four toys on four posts.

The team froze six rules for a tide-chasing tower climb and wrote down twelve towers. A test render showed the keeper, a cracked plank, a gull nest and the summit lamp on felt-like blocks over a painted sea.

Four test pieces on posts over a blue sea: the keeper, a cracked plank, a gull nest and the summit lamp.
The first test render, November 7
The warning

The tide warning was too short.

Early runs gave only 0.15 to 0.22 seconds of warning on fast falls. Fall speed was capped and the danger mark moved, so every measured failure gave at least half a second. Later the warning started earlier still and stayed on until the gap recovered, lifting the shortest warning to 0.867 seconds.

Toy fort

The grey blocks became a toy fort.

Flat grey stages gave way to beveled wooden planks lit by one warm lamp, painted harbor, cliff and storm backdrops, and a progress bar up the side. The desktop check held 60 frames per second with no sample below 56.

First Light mid-climb on wooden planks, with the timer, tide distance, summit percentage and shell count on wooden plaques.
First Light on wooden planks
Rope walls

Rope walls and a steady camera.

Rope and green tags now mark where you can cling and kick, while plain stone stays slick. Fifteen new tower elements joined the climb. The camera stopped following short hops, cutting wall movement from 77 pixels to none over ten jumps.

Harbor before the update, with plain walls.
Harbor after the update, with rope walls, a tide tube and rope ladders.
Harbor, before and after
Twelve lights

Twelve different New England lights.

Nine Massachusetts designs filled out the campaign, so every tower has its own summit. They include a cluster of three small towers, a dark iron skeleton and a lantern with diagonal glazing bars.

Block Island Southeast lighthouse at night in the rain, with its beam sweeping across the sea.
Block Island Southeast
The name

The game found its name.

It took its final name, Lighthouse Leaper, after web, itch, Steam and app-store searches found no exact match. A test profile with only the old save folder still loaded Continue and kept its rank, shells and sound levels.

The Lighthouse Leaper title screen with the lighthouse, the keeper and the menu.
The title screen
Newest update

Version 1.2.10 goes public.

Browser, Windows and Android builds went up together. On a handheld, all twelve towers were cleared and 474 replay hashes matched the Windows build, at 60 frames per second.

Selected milestones from the Lighthouse Leaper build journal.

Read the full build journal →

The build journal

How the tower went up, from the first grey wall to the newest update.

Read the build journal