How to play 9K Club

The goal

Collect points. Every round adds to your running total, and your total decides your level, from Guest at zero to Legend at 9,000 points. Reaching Legend is how you join the 9K Club. You can do it in a handful of long sessions or in dozens of two-minute breaks.

Controls

• Phone or tablet: touch the game screen and drag left or right. The basket follows your finger. You can still scroll the page by dragging up and down.
• Mouse: move the pointer across the game screen.
• Keyboard: left and right arrow keys, or A and D.

What falls

• Gold nine: worth 9 points and counts as two catches for your combo.
• Aqua coin: worth the number on it, from 1 to 5.
• Bomb: catching one costs a life and breaks your combo. Bombs fall faster as the round goes on.
• Clock: adds 5 seconds to the timer.
• Heart: gives back one life, up to three. It only appears when you have lost one.

Combos and multipliers

Each catch adds to your combo. For every six in the combo, your multiplier goes up by one, to a maximum of x5. At x5 every catch is worth five times its number, so a single gold nine is worth 45 points. Catching a bomb, or letting a gold nine fall past the basket, resets the combo to zero.

Six tips

1. Chase the gold nines first. They fall slower than the coins at the same level and they build the combo twice as fast.
2. Stay in the middle. From the centre you can reach either side in time.
3. Let a lone coin go if a bomb is next to it. A missed coin costs nothing.
4. Watch for the pink heart when you are down to one life.
5. Grab the clock early in the round. Five seconds is worth more when the multiplier is high.
6. Take a break between rounds. Fresh hands beat tired hands.

Next steps

See the levels and badges, read the FAQ or head back to the game.