My evenings used to go like this: open YouTube Shorts, scroll, scroll, look for something new to play, scroll some more. Then I downloaded a tiny game called KITAUT, and now I spend that time swinging on ropes and breaking into pieces instead. Verdict: play it. It is free, it is small, and it is very well made for something that only came out in September.

Swing, let go, grab the next rope

KITAUT is a simple physics game. You hang from a rope above a sleeping city, tap to build momentum, swipe to let go, and try to catch the next rope. The only goal is to get as far as possible before you miss. There are no levels, and the climb goes from the rooftops up through the sky and into space, if you ever get that far.

The physics is where the game gets a bit deeper than it looks. Grab a rope too high and you slide down it, which usually ruins the swing you had planned. Jump far enough and you can skip one rope completely, which feels great and is the fastest way up. The ropes can also snap, so you do not get to hang around and think.

KITAUT screenshots

KITAUT: A stick figure mid-swing with a HIGH! tag at 13 m, ropes and lampposts above the night city KITAUT: Catching a rope at 16 m, with the 91 m best score shown at the top KITAUT: Fake Spider-Man swinging on a long rope between two lampposts at 16 m KITAUT: The character shatters against a building with a red AGH, blood and pieces flying

Falling is the best part

And you know what is funny? Missing a rope is the moment I enjoy most. You fall, you hit a building, and you shatter into pieces with a little splat. It is dark humor in a 1-bit pixel art world, and it never stops being a bit funny. The restart is instant, so a bad run costs you nothing but a laugh.

My best score is only 172. I could probably push that if I tried, but mostly I just mess around: a 360 before the jump, a release at the wrong moment to see what happens, that kind of thing. The game is fine with that. It gives you a leaderboard if you care about numbers and gets out of the way if you do not.

Banana, fake Batman, and a few ads

You unlock characters as you play, and the roster is a joke in the good sense: a banana, a fake Batman, a fake Spider-Man, Pepe the frog, and many more. Some are earned through achievements, and the store also lists paid unlocks and a remove-ads purchase. There are ads, but not too many, and they did not annoy me enough to mention them twice.

For a new release, this is quality work. Not AI slop, not an ad box with a game stuck to the side. If you have five minutes before sleep and your thumb is already on the screen, swing on some ropes instead. Then tell me your best score, because mine is not going to impress anyone.