h8

About the game

h8 calls itself a "Bergsteigersimulator", a mountaineering simulator, and it means it in the most hands-on way. The rock face fills the screen with small holds, and at the bottom stand the two arms of your climber, reaching up. You do not jump or run: you move one hand or one foot at a time and look for something to hold on to.

The climb is split into three pitches. Before each one, a screen shows its number, its difficulty grade and a par time to beat. During the climb, a clock at the top of the screen counts the hours and minutes you take, and the view scrolls up the face as you make progress. Finish the last pitch and a final screen sums up your time.

Every reach takes a little care. You hold down the key for one limb and steer it toward a hold while the key stays down; let go over a hold and the hand or foot grabs it, let go over bare rock and it goes back to where it was. The limbs wobble a bit as you move them, so lining one up with a small hold is part of the challenge.

Playing it here

The program is assembled from the author's unchanged source, the same code he published for Octojam IV, with the speed, colours and settings of that release. The screens use German words: "Drücke eine Taste" means "press a key", "Bereit" means "ready", "Grad" is the grade of the pitch and "Par" the target time.

Five years later, Chromatophore, who had the original idea, made a sequel for the XO-CHIP: H8 2: Carry Flag, which is also on this site.

Controls

Tips

• Aim before you let go. A hand released over bare rock goes back to its last hold, and the clock keeps running.
• Keep the feet up. Bringing the feet higher lets the hands reach the next row of holds.
• Think about the par. The par time on each pitch screen is the time to beat; a steady sequence of moves is faster than many wasted reaches.
• Save before a hard section. F2 stores the exact moment, and F4 brings it back.