A world that changes every two levels,
a tour of thirty landscapes
Welcome to the PathMaster World Tour. A girl sets out from a dawn forest and before long she is running under neon signs, and after that, walking above the clouds. In PathMaster the scenery is more than a backdrop. When it rains her steps get quicker, a headwind slows her down, and night closes in on the view ahead.
This is a PathMaster World Tour: in what order the thirty landscapes show up, and how weather and wind change the run, with twenty screens from the real game along the way. Every number comes straight from the game’s code.
How the scenery changes
The scenery moves on to the next place every two levels. It is not a hard cut: while you run a level, the sky and ground colors slowly blend toward the next landscape. To see all thirty you have to run 60 levels.
The order is reshuffled every time you launch the app. Once shuffled, it stays the same until you close the app, so restarting the run picks up the scenery you were just looking at. One rule, though: the first landscape (levels 1-2) is never one of the five hard-to-see places, Night Trail, Deep Fog, Thunderstorm, Neon Street or Aurora. Someone still learning the game should fail because the path is hard, not because they cannot see it.
Forests and waterside: bright, easy-to-read paths
Dawn Forest, Morning Forest, Riverside, Flower Meadow, Bamboo Grove, Still Lake: the early landscapes are bright and calm. At Riverside you can see water under the broken stretches, and Waterfall Gorge has a very faint mist hanging in the air.
Wind: pushing her on, or holding her back
Every landscape has its own wind. The girl leans into it, and in a headwind the tip of her hood streams backward. Here is what it does to her speed.
| Wind | Landscape | Speed |
|---|---|---|
| Strongest headwind | Desert Crossing | about −6% |
| Headwind | Mountain Pass, Glacier, Harbor | about −3 to −4% |
| Strongest tailwind | Thunderstorm, Open Sea | about +5% |
| Tailwind | Rainfall, Sea of Clouds, Autumn Woods | about +4% |
The numbers look small, but late in a level, when the girl is already running fast, a few percent matter a lot. Think of headwind stretches as a place to catch your breath and tailwind stretches as a place to hurry your hands.
Rain, snow and lightning: weather you feel in your feet
- Rain (Rainfall, Thunderstorm): wet ground makes the girl a little faster, about 4% in Rainfall and about 6% in Thunderstorm. “Slippery” here does not mean she falls, it means she picks up speed.
- Snow (Snowfield, Glacier, Aurora): a weaker speed-up than rain, about 2 to 3%.
- Lightning (Thunderstorm): the sky flashes every 3.5 to 9 seconds. It is only a visual effect and never hurts the girl. The screen does tremble slightly for the whole storm, though.
- Sand and embers (Desert Crossing, Volcano): just blowing effects. No slipping.
Against rain and snow, the answer is the Umbrella gear. Once it opens, the rain drops to 15%, the wind eases to 40%, and the storm’s trembling stops.
Night and fog: when the view ahead fades
There are four night landscapes: Night Trail, Firefly Wood, Neon Street and Aurora. The edges of the screen darken, so gaps far ahead are harder to read. And even landscapes that are not night ones turn to dusk if you run long enough, because the in-game day passes with the distance you run.
Fog is thickest in Deep Fog, and lies thin over the Factory Belt. For night and fog, the Lantern gear does the work. Once lit, it clears the fog down to a quarter and lifts the darkness of night.
Fire, cities, and above the clouds
The thirtieth landscape is Aurora: a green curtain of polar night, with snow falling. It is both night and snow, so the Lantern and the Umbrella both have work to do, which makes it one of the busiest landscapes of all.
The city side has plenty of variety too: Downtown, Neon Street, Villa Town, Shanty Row, Harbor, Factory Belt and Rooftops. Past level 10, rocks, logs, birds and bee swarms start flying onto the path. Rocks come mostly in Mountain Pass, Volcano and Glacier, and birds in Morning Forest and Sunset Ridge.
A rhythm that carries across landscapes: combos
Even when the scenery changes, your rhythm carries on. Cross gaps back to back and from the third one on a combo appears, like 3 IN A ROW!, and for every 5 you chain you get H coins: 6 for 5 in a row, 7 for 10, 8 for 15.
A combo breaks when you fall, or when an obstacle on the path hits you and you STUMBLE!. Even when the scenery is unfamiliar, keep your hands doing what they always do. That is the secret to a long combo.
- It changes every two levels and is reshuffled at every launch.
- Headwinds slow her, tailwinds, rain and snow speed her up. A few percent, but big late in a level.
- Lightning is just a show. Do not let it startle you, keep your eyes on the drawer.
- Lantern for night and fog, Umbrella for rain and snow.
The last story is the black hole bonus stage, which opens every five levels starting from level 3.
Where will you run today?
The path is different every time.
Play PathMaster now
Playing it is much faster than reading about it.
Find the other Master Series games all in one place at hanilab.app.
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