Spinout

One orbit, one button, and a combo that never resets until something hurts you

Single player
arcade
skill
casual

▶ Play Spinout Loads here in the page. No download, no account.

Prefer it full screen? Open Spinout on its own.

About Spinout

You are a small orb travelling round a fixed circular track, and the only thing you control is which way round you are going. Every tap reverses you. Gold motes sit on the ring waiting to be collected, red spikes sit on it waiting to not be, and your job is to keep sweeping up the first while threading past the second.

The scoring is what gives it teeth. A mote is worth ten times your current combo, and the combo climbs with every single one you take and only ever resets when a spike catches you. So a good run does not gently improve — it compounds, and the twentieth mote in a chain is worth two hundred points while the first was worth ten. You have three lives, which means you have three chances to throw that away.

Spikes announce themselves before they arm, so nothing is unfair, and nothing ever spawns close enough to you to be unavoidable. Everything that goes wrong is something you steered into.

What is different about this version

The combo has no timer on it at all. Nothing decays, nothing expires — you keep everything you have built until a spike touches you, which turns the game into one long tightrope rather than a series of short bursts. Spikes are also not instantly lethal: each one telegraphs for a little over half a second before it arms, stays dangerous for about a second, then disappears entirely, so a spike can be safely crossed early or simply waited out. The orbit speed climbs with the clock and with your score, so a good run is actively making itself harder. Motes expire too, fading out after about six seconds on the ring.

How to play Spinout

Tap once to start; your orb begins circling the core.
Every tap after that reverses your direction of travel.
Pass over a gold mote to collect it — worth ten points times your combo.
A spike that has finished flashing will take a life and reset your combo to one.
Three lives and the run is over. Your best score is kept.

Controls

Desktop	Click anywhere, or press Space, to flip direction.
Phone or tablet	Tap anywhere on the screen.
Players	One player. Any other characters on screen are run by the game.

Strategy

The single most important thing to understand is that your speed is tied to your score, not just to elapsed time. Every point you bank nudges the orbit faster, up to roughly double the starting speed. A high combo therefore buys you a harder game, which sounds punishing but is really a scheduling problem: bank the easy motes early while you are slow and can afford to be greedy, and become more conservative as the ring speeds up, because the same gap you were threading a minute ago now closes in half the time.

Spike timing is the skill that separates a decent score from a good one. A spike flashes before it can hurt you, and vanishes about a second after it arms. That gives you two safe windows on either side of one dangerous one, and the early window is usually the better bet — a spike that has just appeared can be driven straight over, while waiting one out means sitting on the far side of the ring with motes expiring behind you.

Because every tap reverses you completely, the rhythm that works is short back-and-forth sweeps over a cluster rather than committing to laps. Pick the arc that has two or three motes on it and shuttle across them. Never flip purely to avoid one spike without checking what is behind you on the other side — the reversal that saves you is often the one that drives you straight into the thing you had already passed. And with a very large combo running, it is correct to let a mote fade rather than take a fifty-fifty on a spike.

Mistakes that cost you the game

Flipping late. You travel further after you decide than it looks, so the decision has to come before the spike is close.
Reversing without looking behind you, straight back into a spike you had already cleared.

Tips

Cross a spike while it is still flashing. It cannot hurt you until it stops.
A spike that has armed disappears after about a second, so waiting is a real option when nothing is expiring.
Motes fade after roughly six seconds. The oldest-looking one on the ring is the one to take first.
Nothing spawns right next to you, so every hit was reachable in time — read the ring, not just the space in front of you.

Questions about Spinout

Does the combo run out on a timer?

No. It only resets when a spike hits you, which is why a careful run can build it a very long way.

What happens when a spike catches me?

You lose one of three lives and the combo drops back to one. The third hit ends the run.

Why does it feel faster when I am doing well?

Because it is. Orbit speed rises with elapsed time and with your score, to a cap of roughly double the start.

Can a spike appear on top of me?

No. Spawn positions are kept well away from your orb, and everything flashes before it arms.

Is there anything to unlock?

No — one ring, one mode, and your best score stored on the device.

Does it cost anything?

No. Spinout is free to play, runs in your browser, and needs no download, install or account.

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