Guide
How to play MACPIE
You are riding a bike down a Townsville road in swooping season. A magpie wants your head. You have three hearts, two thumbs and an uppercut.
Controls
| Action | Phone | Keyboard |
|---|---|---|
| Duck left | Hold the left button | ← or A |
| Duck right | Hold the right button | → or D |
| Uppercut | Tap the middle button | ↑ or Space |
| Pause | Pause button, top right | P or Esc |
A duck lasts as long as you hold the button. Let go and you sit back up in the middle of the road. You can throw an uppercut while ducking.
Reading the swoop
The magpie tracks your head while it dives. When its eyes flash red and a red ring appears on its shadow, it has locked on. Duck after the lock: move too early and it simply follows you. Faked dives, mid-air pauses, zig-zags, sudden bursts of speed, late locks and double strikes join in as the stages rise.
Uppercuts
You start with two punches and carry up to three. Every two dodges earns one more. A punch thrown right as the beak arrives is a Perfect KO and refunds the punch. A punch that is close but not perfect stuns the magpie, and a second hit knocks it out. A missed punch leaves your guard down for a moment.
Stamina
Every duck costs stamina. Rest for a quarter of a second and it refills. When you are tired your ducks get slower and your head stays in the old spot for longer, so mashing left and right gets you caught. Your rider sweats, goes red and starts panting when stamina runs low.
Dempsey Time
Dodge six times to charge the gauge. The magpie then attacks to a beat while arrow notes fall down both sides of the screen. Duck toward each note as it reaches the line. Blue notes with a tail are holds: keep the button down until the tail ends, because the bird hovers at your head the whole time. Clear every note and you go into a Dempsey roll: 4.5 seconds where nothing can touch you and dodges score 1.5 times. Miss a single note and the whole charge is lost.
Patterns are random every time. Higher stages bring more notes, a faster beat, more surprise direction changes and longer holds.
Scoring
| Move | Points |
|---|---|
| Dodge | 10 |
| Stun hit | 25 |
| Knockout | 35 |
| Perfect KO | 50 |
Every five dodges in a row raises your combo multiplier by 0.5, up to three times. Getting hit resets the combo.
Stages
Your score moves you up a stage. Each stage makes the magpie faster and its tricks more frequent. The sky moves from midday to golden afternoon, sunset, dusk, night and finally a blood moon with lightning. From stage 7 a second magpie joins in.
Share your run
When the game ends, tap Share to story. MACPIE builds a story-sized card with your score, survival time and a snapshot of the moment the magpie got you. Post it and mention @frogs_free.