Sawdust

A sideshow stage at the end of the night, and one wheel still turning. Tap to throw. There is no aiming — the wheel's rotation is the whole of the difficulty, and the only decision you ever make is when, which is why it plays with one thumb and is still hard. Every knife you land makes the next one harder. The wheel fills with your own steel, so the run strangles itself: success is what kills you. Nothing else has to escalate for the difficulty to escalate. Then it does escalate. Ten knives sweeps the wheel clean and brings it back a tier faster — eight tiers, from three seconds a turn down to eight tenths — and from tier four it kicks backwards for half a second on the way, taking away the rhythm you just learned at the moment you earned it. The footlights along the front are the tier: one lamp burning at the start, the whole rig by the end, so you can read how deep you are without looking at a number. Sweep it quickly and the sweep is worth more. The clear bonus falls away over the time a tier takes, so the safe early knives are worth rushing and the late ones are a gamble against a shrinking prize. Stop throwing altogether and the multiplier cools. Apples are the greedy play and the safe one at the same time. They are worth a hundred and a step of multiplier, and taking one clears that arc of the wheel — so whether an apple is a reward or a rescue depends entirely on what is already stuck around it. One wheel a day, for everybody. The Daily is three runs on the same seeded wheel every player in the world gets, summed into one score, and it is the only ranked mode — so a place on the board is a claim about you rather than about the draw. Classic and Frenzy are there whenever you want them and never submit. Eight tiers, one tap, and about fifteen seconds a run.