Skywire

Skywire is an action game with twenty levels released March 2007. The player controls a cable car while trying to get at least one passenger to the finish platform. The player must speed up or slow down the car while avoiding the robotic creatures. When all three passengers have been knocked out of the cable car, the level has to be restarted. Nitrome considers Skywire their first very popular game. It is the tenth Nitrome Flash game.

Controls
up Up arrow key - Moves the cable car forward

down Down arrow key - Moves the cable car backward

Level 1
To start off level one, go up the ramp at the start of the track, but the player has to slow down when they get to the top; there is a giraffe-in-the-box. Wait until it recedes, then go quickly over, as they swiftly pop back out.

However, the player must immediately start to brake, as there is another giraffe directly along the track. Again, wait until it starts to recede to go past it. Let the cable car fall until you start up another ramp, brake when the cable car gets halfway from the start of the incline to snake circling the track above.

Edge slowly up the track until a little bit before the snake's head circles around. Go quickly between the gap and up the half loop. Stop immediately after the track is flat again. Once again, wait a bit before the gap is closed to go through it. Go slowly up the next hill until you see the frog. Go forward as soon as you see the frog fall back down.

Keep on going until you reach the downhill part. Pause for a little bit, if the cable car just goes straight through the track with the three seagulls it will not get hit, but be careful to stop right before you to get to the frog. Wait carefully until the cable car sees the frog fall back down, then simply go straight forward until the cable car reaches the end of the level.

Level 2
This level has a lot of seagulls. The easiest way to complete this level (but the player still loses one passenger) is to hold down the 'up' arrow key, which makes the player go forward. Another way is to wait for the Seagull's bombs to go past before the player goes.

Level 3
The player should go forwards, then when they come to the bend, wait for the butterfly to pass. Then go forward past the second bend, and again wait for the butterfly to pass.

Now go down, then hold the down arrow key, and wait for the butterfly to pass, now go down, close to the water, stopping when butterflies come near. When the cable car goes up, make sure the player does not hit any butterflies. Finally, go up into the bend, onto the finish platform.

Level 4
This level has some butterflies. The player should start by going right, down, left, up and right

Level 5
The player starts by going right, then left, encountering some parachute pandas and a pooping seagull. Then they go down and encounter three more pooping seagulls, and continue going right. The player encounters the parachute pandas again, then they go left, close to the water, where killer whales jump.

Level 6
The player has to dodge some turtles and butterflies.

Level 7
The player goes right, dodging a rabbit and monkeys, then he/she goes left, dodging another rabbit. Finally he/she ends dodging the monkeys again.

Level 8
The player starts being chased by a bat, goes down and encounters a seagull and a hippopotamus. Then the player goes up and encounters a frog, another seagull and another frog. Then the player goes down dodging another seagull and another frog.

Ripoff
On May 6th, 2011, Nitrome posted an image and a link to a Kotaku article about flash games ripped off the internet and ported to the iPhone without asking the original authors for the game. A part of the article was about Skywire illegally ported without permission from Nitrome. The image for the game on Nitrome's blog article about the link to the Kotaku article later changed for unknown reasons. The iPhone version of Skywire was a complete rip off the original, with the background and platforms for the game changed.

Mat Annal requested that Apple take the game down, and they did. The game was then re-uploaded to the Apple App store, with the Cable Car's, Bean Peoples', and enemies' graphics changed, but the rest of the game was the same. Version two of the game was still held as copyright infringement. Later, on Wednesday May 25th, Mat posted a nine-minute video comparing the levels of Nitrome's Skywire game with the levels of the two rip offs.

Distribution
The game was made a distributable game, and was one of the twelve games made available when the distributable games page was launched on August 25th.

Awards

 * Jay is Games
 * 2008
 * Best of Casual Gameplay 2007
 * Best Action or Arcade game of 2007
 * Nominated - Eighth place (4.8% of votes)
 * }

Beta content
Present in the game is images of words, these images likely used for the names of button in some sort of level editor. Much of the text does not seems to correspond to anything seen in the game, but rather programming and coding of the game.

Trivia

 * Lee Nicklen (Skywire's composer) made 6 extra tracks.
 * 1) Extra Song #1
 * 2) Extra Song #2
 * 3) Extra Song #3
 * 4) Extra Song #4
 * 5) Extra Song #5
 * 6) Extra Song #6