THE MAGMA FIELD

A ROAD THAT PINCHES

The fourth world is the first one lit from underneath. The paving sits on cracked black rock over a lake of lava, and the glow of the melt comes up through every crack, so the whole world takes the color of fire. In the middle stands the most personal monument in the game: a fallen stone colossus of Kai himself, with an anvil drawn up against it and a hammer standing in its notch.

The road is a loop with a waist. At one point it pinches narrow, and that narrowest point slowly travels around the loop, so the place where the lanes squeeze together is never where it was last lap. The lanes keep their number through the pinch; it is the picture that tightens, and it makes the road ahead harder to read at a glance.

NEW HERE: THE MAGMA

Here the world itself attacks. The lava bubbles, and then it throws a glob of molten rock up onto the road. Before it lands, the lane it will land in is marked. Where it lands, a pillar of fire stands up out of the paving and burns for a while, and running into the fire is a hit, exactly like a wall.

A dash breaks a burning pillar the way it breaks a wall, but the cheaper answer is usually to be somewhere else, and keep the dash for the lane you cannot leave. Watch the marks: the glob always tells you where it is going before it gets there.

HOW TO PLAY THE MAGMA FIELD

The pinch hides the far end of the road, so this is the world where the warning mark over Kai's head earns its place. When it lights up, believe it even if you cannot see the wall yet. The world is also faster than the Spore Hollow, and it gives back the lane the figure eight took away, so use the extra room: keep to a lane with space on both sides and you always have two ways out.

Greed is still the engine. A release pays more the more you have collected since the last one, and the Magma Field is fast enough that a long line is worth a lot. The gate at the end falls one lane of slabs per dash, so every lane you break before it reaches you is one less you need on the next pass.