The Pecking Peak: A Weekly Climbing Tower Game Guide

Three flaps left. Two. One. You catch the ledge by a single toe while your rival sails past in a cannon. The Pecking Peak is Pecking Order's weekly climbing tower game: a free browser climb with only 3 flaps in the air, a new mountain for everyone each week, an endless tower and a haystack to swan dive at.

If Jump King or Getting Over It ever made you shout at a screen, you know the feeling: one bad flap and a minute of climbing falls away. The difference here is that your friends are falling right next to you, and you get to watch. New to the game? Start with the complete Pecking Order guide.

How does the Pecking Peak work?

You're a chicken at the foot of a mountain. You can flap only 3 times while you're in the air. Land on anything, a ledge, a crate, another bird, and all three come back. Every jump becomes a little puzzle: can I make it to that ledge before I run out?

• The goal: first to the summit flag wins.
• The final minute: once someone is up, everyone else gets one last minute to catch up.
• Out of time: if the clock runs out, the highest bird wins.
• Gentler climbs: hosts can make it 4 or 5 flaps if your group is new.

There are no mystery eggs on the Peak. Instead, the POWER button uses whatever is next to you: crank a lift, peck a sandbag's rope, hop into a cannon, pull a lever, grab a balloon. Reach a new best perch and you earn an egg step, so tap POWER in mid-air to lay a little step and stand on it.

How does the weekly climb work?

Two challenges reset every week, and they're the same for everybody, so the boards are a real race:

• THE PEAK OF THE WEEK is one mountain for the whole week, with a board of the fastest summits. Learn it, shave seconds, take the crown from your friends.
• ENDLESS is a tower that never stops and gets harder the higher you go. A new world starts about every 150 m, with a banner every 100 m to show off. A line follows you up: it never chases you, but drop below it and you're out. Last bird flapping wins, and the week's tower has its own board.

You don't even have to start a match for the endless tower. Once your Coop reaches level 11, its climbing wall lets you climb this week's endless tower straight from the waiting room, with rope coils to tie yourself to a friend. No dying there, just a crash mat. The wall and the rest of the toys are in our guide to Your Coop's mini-games.

Three ways to climb, two ways to team up

Pick how the climb plays:

• SUMMIT RACE: first to the flag wins. The classic.
• FREE CLIMB: no clock, no score. Just climbing and chatting.
• ENDLESS: the tower that never ends, as above.

Then pick the mountain's size. SHORT is always the CLASSIC course, 146 m of it. NORMAL and TALL are bigger and get rebuilt from the world's pieces every round, so you can't just memorise them.

ROPE DUOS ties two climbers together, and it's where the screaming starts. Fall while your partner stands on a ledge and you're SAVED!: you dangle on the rope while they mash flap to haul you up, or tap POWER to FLING you upward (once a ledge). But if you're both in the air when one of you slips, you both go. Both of you have to reach the flag. It's the free browser cousin of Chained Together, and we compare them in our list of games like Chained Together.

Ambushes, wild events and the comeback cannon

The mountain fights back. Every world has 4 surprise traps, 20 kinds across the five worlds, and a red "!" pops up about a second before each one hits. They don't come constantly, but the leader is 2.5 times likelier to be picked, so being in front feels dangerous. Escape by a whisker and you get a DODGED! and a free gold flap.

Hosts can switch on EVENTS too: GOLDEN HOUR, STORM, LIGHTS OUT, QUAKE, or a world's own twist like RISING WATER, BAT MIGRATION, BLACKOUT, HIGH TIDE, FOG BANK or BLOOD MOON. Pure chaos, which is why a round with an event keeps no best times.

And nobody gets left behind for long. With 2 or more birds and 45 seconds gone, whoever is last gets one COMEBACK CANNON shot up toward the pack. Nothing says "I'm back" like arriving by cannon.

Take the leap: where do you land?

Reaching the flag isn't the end. You TAKE THE LEAP: a swan dive off the summit, where every flap is a flip, down toward the world's haystack. Hit the middle for a PERFECT LEAP. Miss it and you SPLAT, in front of everyone.

Each world has its own landing spot:

• Neon Tower: a glowing foam cube.
• The Deep: a mine cart piled with hay.
• Neo City: a dumpster full of hay.
• Canal Town: a hay barge.
• Haunted Barn: the classic hay pile, with pumpkins.

After the leap your place is locked in, and you can keep climbing as a see-through ghost just for fun.

Tips for a faster summit

1. Count your flaps. Plan every jump to land before your third flap, and treat every ledge as a refill.
2. Climb your friends. With HEAD BOUNCE on, a bounce off another bird's head is a free flap. A crowded wall is a ladder.
3. Respect the red "!". You have about a second. If you're leading, expect visitors.
4. Don't panic after a big fall. Drop 30 m or more and you get a gold flap to start back up.
5. Grab the corn when you're feeling brave. Eight cobs of GOLD CORN sit on the risky lines: 2 Seeds each and 10 more for all 8, in ranked rounds with 2 or more birds, up to 120 corn Seeds a day.
6. Poke around. Hidden secrets hand out free flaps too.

More habits for every mode are in our Pecking Order tips.

Can you climb the Peak alone?

Absolutely. Every course has medal times: on the CLASSIC course, reach the top in 0:50 for gold, 1:20 for silver or 2:00 for bronze. Two stars sit beside the medals, NO FALLS and ALL CORN, for the perfectionists. Sign in and the game keeps a ghost of your best run to race, the most honest rival you'll ever have.

Does the Peak count for rankings?

Mostly. Summit races count, and a taller mountain pays more points. If the host changes the flaps or the height, turns on HEAD BOUNCE or plays Rope Duos, wins and points still count but best times don't. An event round keeps no best times, and FREE CLIMB never counts at all.

Ready to climb? Host a game and pick THE PECKING PEAK. It's not in the public mix, so Quick Play won't take you there. Open Pecking Order and start climbing.