Tap to plant your pole, tap again at vertical to release. Clear the bar — it rises every time you do.
An athlete runs across the track carrying a pole. A bar stands ahead. You get two taps per attempt.
First tap — plant the pole. The runner must be inside the green plant zone on the track. Tap too early or too late and the attempt fails.
Second tap — release. The planted pole swings upward in an arc, carrying the runner. Tap while the pole is close to vertical; the end of the pole glows green as it nears upright. Release too far before or after vertical and the attempt fails.
How high you fly depends only on how close to vertical you let go — where you planted makes no difference. A perfectly upright release gives the most lift, and every degree early or late costs height. Fly higher than the bar and you score a point, and the bar rises a notch; fall short and the bar comes down. On the first few bars any accepted release clears, but higher bars need a release closer and closer to vertical.
Missing the plant, missing the release, or knocking the bar down each cost one of your three lives.
Plant the pole, don't plant the runner. The green zone is wide on the early attempts, so don't panic-tap as soon as you see the bar coming up — wait until the runner is comfortably inside the zone. Early taps are the most common life loss.
The vertical release window is symmetric around dead-center. The pole sweeps through it in about a third of a second, which is plenty if you watch for the moment, not the position. Look at the angle of the pole, not at the runner — the pole tells you when it's about to be straight up.
Clearance is decided by release timing alone. Up to a score of about 5, every release the game accepts also clears the bar. After that the margin narrows faster than the accepted window does: at 10 you must let go within about 12 degrees of vertical, at 15 within about 7 degrees, and from 20, when the bar stops rising, within about 3.4 degrees — roughly 25 milliseconds either side of upright, while the green window still accepts about 6 degrees. An accepted release is not automatically a good one, so aim for dead vertical every time.
The plant zone shrinks as the score climbs. By score fifteen the green band is narrow and the runner is moving fast — your eye has to track the runner, not the bar. Pre-commit to the plant, then re-focus on the pole for the release.