Protocol notes open on Mag Climb as the lead Arcade Surge flange entry. The check treats the build as a browser session, not a store listing. Pass/fail criteria focus on magnet heat readability, gold-bolt reach, and pipe dumps that stay fair within a 20–45 second window. Check recorded 12 November 2026.

Intake logged a hard-hat agent on rising scaffold beams. The primary verb is lean-and-hold: position under a bolt, hold to magnet-reel it into the hat, release to walk, hop when beams gap. Secondary stress comes from swinging pipes and from overextend attempts toward far gold bolts. The flange stamp requires that each of those stresses remain visible before a failure resolves.

Setup and control map

Desktop and narrow viewport passes used the same control map. Horizontal lean follows pointer or A/D. Hold engages the magnet. Short hop clears beam gaps. Camera bias climbs with the scaffold, so missed beams read as slips rather than invisible pits. Protocol notes mark this as a pass for control clarity: the first successful reel completes inside the opening calm window before pipes densify.

Session length claims were sampled across novice and practiced loops. Early loops cluster near twenty seconds when pipes arrive early or heat locks the magnet. Practiced loops stretch toward forty-five seconds when gold reels chain without overheat. The published 20–45 s band matches observed Arcade Surge timing on this flange. No download counter or public store rating was attached — browser build, hosted for play here.

Strengths

Strength one: magnet heat is an honest resource. Holding widens reach and raises heat; releasing cools. Overheat locks the reel for a short window that is telegraphed in the UI. Pass/fail criteria treat this as a clear risk meter rather than a hidden stamina drain. Gold bolts demand wider radius, which forces a heat commitment that can strand the hat under a pipe arc. That tradeoff is the core Arcade Surge lesson of the card.

Strength two: scaffolding reads as a vertical flange. Beams provide footing; gaps force hops; pipes sweep lanes. Failures resolve as BONK or SLIP with the offending object still on screen. Protocol notes prefer this to off-screen spikes. Near-miss scoring around pipes rewards lane discipline without requiring frame-perfect pixel hunting on first contact.

Strength three: the gold path is optional pressure, not a soft lock. Grey bolts keep a safe climb viable. Gold multiplies score and hop height but extends dwell time under hazard trajectories. Best-for tagging on the shortlist — gold bolts without overheating the magnet — matches the observed mastery curve. Rank one on the flange follows from that clarity: the high-value path teaches the same verbs as the safe path, only hotter.

Strength four: event variety (surge windows, denser pipe waves, neon stretches) changes density without rewriting the verb set. Checks confirmed that surge still respects heat rules rather than deleting them. That keeps Arcade Surge comparisons fair against Nut Rise and Puck & Perch, which also keep one verb under shifting density.

Limits

Limit one: vertical camera bias can punish hesitation more than skill on narrow viewports. When beams space out late, a slow cool-down after gold can leave the hat under a pipe before hop timing recovers. Protocol notes logged this as a readability stress, not a broken control, but it caps how forgiving late sessions feel.

Limit two: magnet lock after overheat creates a dead interval that newer sessions may misread as input failure. The warn cue exists; still, the first lock often ends the run. Pass/fail criteria still pass because the cue is present, yet the learning cost sits higher than Nut Rise’s continuous rotation feedback.

Limit three: gold temptation can dominate scoring fantasy and hide the safer climb. Players chasing only gold may report the session as “unfair pipes” when the actual failure is dwell time. Editorial language on the flange therefore keeps the best-for line tight and refuses store-style star inflation.

Limit four: audio-visual intensity during surge stacks sparks, banners, and pipe motion. Reduced-motion users still get full mechanical pressure; the desk cannot strip hazards. The check notes that spectacle is denser than Puck & Perch’s ice sheet, which may tire shorter attention windows even when the clock stays inside 45 seconds.

Pass/fail summary

Pass recorded. Primary magnet-reel loop completes in the calm open. Heat and gold tradeoffs remain legible. Pipe dumps stay on-screen. Session band holds. Fail would have required hidden heat, off-screen pipes, or a store-metric claim. None appeared. Arcade Surge ranking places Mag Climb first because the flange can explain the mastery line in one sentence without caveats about installs or ratings.

Comparative note: against Nut Rise, Mag Climb offers hotter instant decisions and shorter median sessions. Against Puck & Perch, it stays tower-tagged and avoids ice timing that stretches past a minute. The pick-of-list CTA on the home flange therefore points here without inventing marketplace proof.

Operational remainder: play path stays on-site at the Mag Climb build URL. Review path remains this magnet protocol. Corrections that change heat timing, session band, or hazard readability should file through contact and land in the check archive on the next stamp.

Best for: Gold bolts without overheating the magnet

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