TL;DR: Easy lengthens greens and relaxes detection; hard shortens greens and tightens movement tolerance. Pick tier matching skill—grinding hard while learning fundamentals frustrates newcomers.
Easy tier profile
Longer first greens, forgiving red transition, shorter total distance—tutorial plus casual.
Normal tier profile
Default experience on first visit—balanced RNG green lengths, standard detection box.
Hard tier profile
Aggressive short greens, stricter micro-movement flagging, possibly longer track—score chase tier.
Extreme or custom mods
Community house rules add instant red randomness or reduced audio telegraph—check mode description text.
Progression recommendation
Clear easy three times, normal five finishes, then hard PB attempts—ladder reduces quit rate.
Difficulty vs personal best validity
Label screenshots with tier—hard PB not comparable to normal leaderboard without normalization.
Sensory load by tier
Hard may flash reds faster—photosensitive players stick easy or adjust screen effects if toggle exists.
Classroom use
Teachers assign easy for K-3, normal grades 4–6—attention span and motor skill alignment.
Switching mid-session
Changing tier resets muscle timing expectation—finish attempt before toggle.
Explore tiers today
One run each tier back-to-back on the game—feel differences empirically not guessing from menu labels alone.
Screenshot tier label
Hard PB not comparable normal leaderboard—normalize in friendly comps.
Clear easy three before hard
Ladder reduces quit rate—frustration from hard while learning fundamentals.
Photosensitive caution hard mode
Faster red flash—offer easy tier for affected players.
Teacher tier assignment
K-3 easy, 4-6 normal—motor and attention alignment.
Finish attempt before tier toggle
Switching mid-run breaks timing expectation—complete run first.
Easy tier used as a cone lesson, then left
The easy tier’s long greens are for learning the cone and the release, not for collecting finishes to brag about. Play easy until you can reach the cone three times without a catch. Then leave. Staying on easy for a week teaches a stroll that hard mode will punish. The exit criterion is the cone, three times. It is not a feeling that you are “ready for anything.” Ready for the next tier is a smaller claim. Make the smaller claim.
Hard tier taps after the first catch, not before
On hard, expect the first attempt to die early. That death calibrates the green length. The second attempt is the first serious one, and it is taps. Players who open hard with a stroll from easy are donating the attempt. Donate it on purpose if you must, then switch policies. Do not donate three in a row because the stroll is more comfortable. Comfort is the previous tier. You left it.
Tier name written in the log header
Write “easy” or “hard” at the top of the page before the first landmark. A finish on easy is not a finish on hard, and the page should not let future you mix them. If the game’s menu uses stars or a color instead of words, write the menu’s label, not your nickname for it. “The red skull one” is not a label you will remember in a month. The menu word is.
Switching tiers mid-session ends the comparison
You may switch tiers. You may not compare the landmark after the switch to the landmark before it as if they were one series. Draw a line across the page. Below the line is a new session with a new header. The line is the whole method. Without it, a short hard attempt looks like a collapse in skill. It is a collapse in green length. Those are different events and the page can show the difference in one stroke of the pen.
Cone counted on easy with a tally, not a vibe
Three cone reaches on easy are three tally marks, not a vibe that you “basically did it.” A catch resets nothing if you are counting successes, but it does not add a mark. Marks are reaches without a catch. When the third mark lands, close the easy header and open the next tier’s header, even if you want a victory lap. The victory lap is how easy becomes home. You can visit home another week. Today you leave.
Line across the page in ink, not in pencil
The tier-change line is in ink so you cannot quietly merge the sections later. Pencil invites a revision that flatters you. Ink is a little dramatic for a notebook and exactly serious enough. Write the new tier’s menu label under the line before you play, so the line is not an afterthought you draw only if the next attempt goes badly. Drawing the line only after a failure is how you hide the good hard-mode attempt in the easy section. Draw it first.
Victory lap scheduled for next week, not today
Write “easy lap next week” at the bottom of today’s page if you want the stroll again. Then close the laptop. The lap you take today will be the real ending, and the hard-tier header will be a footnote you do not remember. Next week the lap is a visit, and today’s hard attempts remain the last thing on the page. Order is memory. Put the thing you want to remember last, which means the lap cannot be last today.
Menu label copied character for character
If the menu says “Hard” with a capital H, the header says Hard, not “hard mode” and not “the difficult one.” Copy it. Small differences become two tiers in a search later. You will think you played a mode you did not. The copy takes five seconds. Do it under the ink line, before the first hard green. A header written after a good attempt gets inflated language. A header written before stays literal.
