Getting your game ready…
Tap the board, or press Space or the Up arrow, to give the seed a small lift. Gravity pulls it straight back down, so a steady rhythm of taps carries it upward and a pause lets it sink. If it drops off the bottom of the screen, the run is over. P or the pause button stops play; Resume carries on exactly where you were.
Every gate is built from four colours, and each colour is stamped with its own shape: mango circles, coral triangles, teal squares and violet crosses. Your seed shows its colour and shape. Float through a piece that matches and you pass; brush any other colour and the run ends. Each gate holds a star worth one point, and the striped orb between gates gives you a new colour.
There is no timer, so you never have to rush a gate. Hover just below it with gentle taps, watch for your colour to come round, then tap quickly to punch through. Inside a ring or square you can hover again while the far side turns to your colour on the way out.
Rings and squares ask for your colour twice, once going in and once coming out. Sliding bars and spinning crosses only need one clean crossing, so timing matters more than waiting. Double rings turn against each other and line your colour up once a turn: if the moment looks tight, let it pass and take the next one.
Colour Gates follows the tap-to-climb colour idea made famous by Color Switch, the phone game by David Reichelt and Aditya Oza. Each run builds a fresh tower: a new gate shape appears every few gates over the first fifteen, and the pace quickens until around gate 36, then holds steady while the shapes keep mixing. The dashed line marks the star that would beat your best.