Sluice

🎮 About This Game

Sluice is a two-key gate run and the judgment leg of the Triple Crown. Two swimmers ride a three-channel sluiceway at a fixed speed — your keys only change channels — and every gate rank ahead cycles open and shut on a clock you can read: each door carries a dial showing exactly when it flips. The clocks are staggered so one channel is always open, which means a perfect reader never stops; every bonk is a plan that was wrong, not a reflex that was slow. The duel is the shadow gate: the channel you swim in also slams shut at your rival's crossings, locked one second before they arrive. Standing in the one lane they need, at the one moment they need it, is the meanest move in the series — and because the lock happens at their decision point, dodging it is planning, never a twitch.

🎯 How to Play

You move forward automatically. P1 changes channel with W and S, P2 with the up and down arrows (solo accepts either). A lane change takes about half a second and then commits — there is a short cooldown before the next — so you are choosing lines, not wiggling. Read the dial on each door: green means open and draining toward shut, red means shut and draining toward open. Aim to cross each rank in a lane whose dial will be green when you arrive, and thread two ranks at a time, because the cheap line through this gate is often the expensive line through the next. Arriving at a shut door is a bonk: a short stun, then you pass when it opens. Your rival's lane is marked on your next gate — locked and solid when you are within a second of crossing, translucent before that — and that lane counts as shut for you. A stopped swimmer casts no shadow, so a bonked rival cannot block you, and parking to blockade does not work. First to the end of the channel takes the round; first to three rounds takes the match.

💡 Tips & Strategy

• ▸Thread two gates, not one. The most common bonk is a greedy dodge through this rank into a dead lane at the next — the dials for both are on screen.
• ▸Change lanes early. The change itself takes half a second and then locks you out for most of another — a plan made late is a plan you cannot execute.
• ▸Watch for the single-lane moment: about a quarter of the time only one door in a rank is open. That is when your rival's shadow can actually trap you, and when yours can trap them.
• ▸Block on purpose, but only when it is cheap. Standing in their only open lane wins beats — standing there while your own next gate shuts in your face does not.
• ▸The shadow locks one second out. Once their claim marker turns solid on your gate, stop hoping it moves and reroute; before it locks, their current lane is only a forecast.
• ▸A bonked rival is harmless. Their shadow lifts while they are stopped, so the moment they hit a door is your moment to take the contested line for free.
• ▸Losing a round to a trap is not losing the match — rounds are short, and the round after a blocked player is usually an angry, sharper one.

❓ Frequently Asked Questions