THERISKR

Debut title — Rhythm Swimmin’

Hit the rhythm.
Hit the wall first.

Competitive rhythm swimming, where every hundredth is earned. The first game from THERISKR.

Play the Beta

Browser beta, open now · Coming to iOS & Steam

iOS release planned. Concept shown.

The studio

THERISKR makes games
about timing.

An independent studio building games where the interesting decision is when, not how fast. Small, deliberate, finished — no systems for the sake of systems.

Everything ships playable first and gets sharpened in the open, with the people playing it.

  1. 01

    Precision over noise

    One mechanic, understood completely, beats five that nearly work.

  2. 02

    Readable in a second

    If the screen can’t tell you what went wrong, the design isn’t done.

  3. 03

    Built in public

    Betas go out early. The changelog is the roadmap.

Debut title · Rhythm Swimmin’

Eight lanes. One clock.
No luck in it.

You race the field and you race the tenths. The pool does not care how hard you try — only whether you arrived on the beat.

Eight lanes, one finish, decided in hundredths A diagram of an eight-lane pool seen from above. The fifteen-metre flags are marked at each end and the touch pad at the finish. Lane four is marked out in evenly spaced stroke beats and touches 0.23 seconds ahead of lane five. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 0.23 s Start 15 m flags 15 m flags Touch pad
Every tick in lane 4 is one stroke, evenly spaced. At the pad there is 0.23 of a second in it. That margin is the whole game.

The twist

Tapping faster
makes you slower.

Mash the button and the stroke breaks. Rush the breath and the line collapses. Speed is not input rate — it is the interval you keep between inputs.

On the beat
−0.34s
Early
+0.11s
Mashing
+1.92s

The strokes

Three strokes.
Three different clocks.

Each one is a separate rhythm with its own way of going wrong. Freestyle is the quickest of the three, breaststroke the slowest, butterfly between them — the same order they sit in in the water.

  1. 01

    Freestyle

    Left, then right, evenly spaced. The tempo readout is the judge — not your thumbs.

    Fails ona beat you can’t hold for the length

  2. 02

    Butterfly

    Both arms together, two kicks to a cycle: one with the pull, one between pulls.

    Fails ona single, un-synced arm — an illegal stroke

  3. 03

    Breaststroke

    Pull, kick, glide — strictly in that order. The glide is where the free speed is.

    Fails onpulling again before the glide is spent

The career

Swim a season.
Hang the times.

Meets, heats, and personal bests that follow you. Every race is written to the board in hundredths — yours, and everyone else’s.

  1. 4You27.4156.08
  2. 5Kestrel27.5556.31
  3. 3Vance27.6256.44
  4. 6Okonkwo27.9057.02

Where you can play it

  • Playable now

    Browser

    Runs in the browser on itch.io. No download.

  • Planned

    iOS

    A dedicated iPhone release. No date announced.

  • Planned

    Steam

    Coming to PC. No date announced.

What’s next

More in development.

Rhythm Swimmin’ is the first of them, not the last. The next projects are early — nothing to show yet, and nothing announced until there is.

In development

Dive

From the same pool. The board, the drop, the hold, the entry — timing carried to a different edge of the water.
In development

MMA

Different sport. Same idea: timing decides it.

Follow along

Watch this space.

Builds, patch notes and whatever comes next go out on itch.io first.

Play the Beta Follow THERISKR on itch.io