Hammer hot metal in the sweet temperature zone — too cold and it clangs, too hot and it scorches.
Metal sits on the anvil, glowing hot. Watch its color: white-yellow is too hot, deep red and black are too cold. The orange-yellow band in the middle is the sweet zone.
Tap anywhere to swing the hammer. The hammer takes a fraction of a second to fall — your timing is when it lands, not when you tap.
Land four good hits in the sweet zone to complete a piece. Each finished piece counts one point.
Wrong hits — too cold or too hot — cost a life. Letting the metal cool all the way to black also costs a life and spawns a fresh piece.
Forge as many pieces as you can with three lives.
The orange-yellow color is your friend, not bright yellow or white. White-hot metal looks impressive but it's actually too soft — the hammer mushes it without shape, and the game registers it as scorched. Aim for the moment just after the metal cools from yellow to deep orange.
The hammer takes a moment to fall after you tap. That's not a bug, it's the swing — you have to predict where the heat will be when the hammer actually lands, not where it is when you tap. If the heat is dropping toward sweet, tap a hair early; if it's right at the sweet edge already, you'll miss high.
Hits boost the heat back up a little, so a steady rhythm beats waiting for perfect heat each time. Three quick good hits in a row will keep the metal in the sweet band without you ever having to wait for it to drop — and that's how you race through the four hits of a piece.
The cooling speeds up as you forge more pieces. Early pieces give you time to think; late pieces want a fast rhythm with no second-guessing. If you find yourself hesitating on piece 8 or 9, that's the game telling you to commit to your timing.