01
Tap the hit zone
Neon rings contract toward the reactor. Tap anywhere in the playfield the instant a ring crosses the fixed outer hit-zone circle—not when it reaches the center.
PULSE Rhythm Survival · Field Guide
How to Play
Tap your way to pure rhythm. Master timing, reveal layers, and ride the drop.
02
Lock into the count-in
Tap anywhere in the playfield to begin. The core counts 4–3–2–1 in the song's tempo before the first playable ring arrives.
03
Build toward Euphoria
Accurate hits build score, combo, stability, and musical layers. Survive Tension and DROP IN 4 to release the full composition.
Timing Grades
Closer timing earns more.
PULSE measures how close your tap is to the ring's exact target time. These are the standard PULSE windows and base scores before streak, Euphoria, difficulty, or raw-timing multipliers.
| Judgment | Window | Base score |
|---|---|---|
| PURE | ±15 ms | +100 |
| PERFECT | ±35 ms | +70 |
| GREAT | ±60 ms | +45 |
| GOOD | ±95 ms | +25 |
| EARLY / LATE | ±130 ms | +10 |
Combo & Layers
Your combo reveals the track.
The kick is the foundation. Hold a streak to bring the rest of the composition online. Sustained accuracy also raises the tempo.
Run start
Kick
Foundation
Combo 2
Hats
Texture
Combo 5
Bass
Harmony
Combo 9
Snare
Groove
Combo 12
Pads
Chords
Combo 18
Melody
Lead line
Combo 26
Fills
Flourish
The Jewels
Light the reactor.
The reactor has seven jewels. One lights at each 10-hit combo milestone, and it stays lit for the rest of the run—even after a miss. Light all seven to reach full power.
Pattern Twist
Learn how pulses mutate.
Standard
Solid ring on the beat
Double
Two rings in quick succession
Offbeat
Ring on the eighth-note offbeat; the judged target never swings
Ghost
Ring fades as it approaches—trust your ears
Seeds & Genres
16,777,216 seeds. Six genre families.
A PULSE seed is six hexadecimal characters. It defines the track's musical DNA and can be replayed or shared by code. The same seed begins with the same DNA; your timing makes the PULSE your own.
Deep Trap
Halftime swing, syncopated hats
Synthwave
Four-on-floor, shimmering pads
House
Fast, sidechain-driven, groovy
Techno Drive
Relentless, high-energy percussion
Halftime Dub
Sparse, deep-sub, ethereal
Ambient Glide
Minimal drums, pad-forward
Same seed. Different PULSE.
The Drop
Survive the arc.
TENSION — Music thins and energy builds.
DROP IN 4 — Tap four charge pulses in the core.
EUPHORIA — Music, light, motion, and haptics reach the full payoff.
Missing a countdown pulse resets the combo and lowers the Euphoria grade, but it never ends the run.
Reactor Stability
The gold arc keeps you alive.
Reactor Stability is the only thing that ends a run. Tight timing rebuilds it—PURE most, GOOD a little. Loose EARLY/LATE timing costs a little; a miss costs the most. The run ends only when the arc empties.
During the first 30 seconds, miss damage is reduced while recovery remains full, giving you room to find the rhythm.
When You Miss
Recover the rhythm.
A tap outside the survival window, an expired pulse, or a stray tap when no ring is claimable is a MISS. It resets combo and drains stability, but it does not subtract points or instantly end the run. Stray taps during the opening count-in are ignored.
When stability reaches zero, restart is instant: tap to pulse again and chase a new seed.
Timing Calibration
PULSE tunes itself to you.
PULSE learns from your first 12 scored runs, then locks in a timing offset for the current audio route. Play those runs normally.
Speaker, wired headphones, and wireless audio keep separate calibrations because each route adds different delay.
SOUND · TIMING CALIBRATION shows the active route and lets you adjust the offset. A manual adjustment stops auto-calibration.
Turn TIMING ASSIST off to play against the raw beat with no correction. The harder raw-timing mode awards 15% more points.
Difficulty
Same music. Different risk.
Every mode plays the same seeds and music. Timing windows, scoring, and Reactor Stability pressure change with the selected mode.
CHILL
Wider timing · same music · lower score
PULSE
The original PULSE feel
LOCKED
Tighter timing · higher score
RESONANCE
Razor timing · maximum score
After a Run
Read the report card.
PERFECT+
Share of taps in the tightest windows. This is the number to grow.
OFFSET
Average timing error. Minus means early; plus means late.
LAYERS OPEN
How much of the track you unlocked. All seven is the full arrangement.
EUPHORIA
Clean streaks that triggered the drop.
SEED
The code for this exact track. Save it to play the same musical DNA again.
The line beneath your score may suggest a difficulty based on the run. It is a nudge, never a penalty, and you can ignore it.
Adaptive Tempo
The music earns speed.
PULSE checks rolling accuracy at eight-bar section boundaries. At 70% or better, tempo rises by 3 BPM up to the seed's ceiling. Surviving Euphoria banks another 2 BPM for the next earned step.
The Reward Is the Music
The score measures the run. The music rewards it.
Every precise tap reveals more of the composition. PULSE is not a rhythm game with a soundtrack—it is an instrument you play.