---
title: "Platform movers"
package: "@phaser-ae/platform-movers"
tier: Pro
version: 3.0.0-2
released: 2026-10-14
updated: 2026-10-19
description: "Moving surfaces for arcade platform games, from ping-pong platforms and looping elevators to switching conveyors, level swings, crumbling bridges and blinking steps."
url: https://phaser.io/packs/platform-movers
site: Phaser - https://phaser.io
---

# Platform movers

Moving surfaces for side-view arcade platform games: shuttles, lifts, looping elevators, switching conveyors, level
swings, crumbling platforms and blinking steps. Add the set to a walker world and the player and enemies stand on,
ride and are carried by all of them.

## What it does

You describe each mover as data, a type, a width and the numbers that drive it, and `createMovers` builds them into
one set. The set follows the moving-surface contract from `platform-map`, so a `platform-walker` world steps it before
its bodies and carries whoever stands on each surface. A walker on a belt is pushed along it, a walker on a lift rises
with it, and a walker on an elevator platform is let off when that platform wraps from the top back to the bottom.

The movers are kinematic and fixed-step, with no randomness: every platform's position is a function of its timers.
That makes a level repeatable for testing and replays, and the set snapshots and restores every phase and timer. The
movers also run on their own as a timeline of platform positions, if you want them without walkers.

Drawing is yours. Each step `pieces()` gives every surface's position, width and visibility, a warning value for a
plank that is shaking or about to vanish, a swing's angle and pivot, and a belt's tread offset. Events such as
`crumble-start`, `belt-reversed`, `elevator-wrap`, `arrived` and `disappear` arrive through `drain()` for sounds and
effects.

## Features

- **Path platforms** — ping-pong, closed loop or one-way trips along waypoints, with a dwell at each and an option to
  start only when a rider steps on.
- **Looping elevators** — columns of platforms moving up or down that wrap from one end to the other and release
  their riders as they do.
- **Conveyors** — belts with a speed and a direction that switches every few seconds, on a cycle of durations, or
  never.
- **Swings** — platforms on a pendulum arc that stay level, with amplitude, period and phase.
- **Crumbling platforms** — shake under a rider, drop or vanish after a delay, and respawn after a time or not at
  all.
- **Timed platforms** — blink on and off on a timetable with a warning before they go.
- **Static ledges and surface flags** — fixed add-on ledges, and on any mover solid undersides, traction, spring pads
  and hazards.
- **Runtime control** — reverse, change speed, enable, trigger, reset, add and remove movers while the game runs.
- **Render state and events** — positions, warnings, rope angles and belt travel each step, and events for every
  change.

## Good for

- **Ladder-and-girder stages** in the style of Donkey Kong, with looping elevators and conveyors that switch
  direction.
- **Single-screen platformers** with lifts, shuttles and spring pads between ladders.
- **Precision platform rounds** with crumbling bridges, blinking steps and swings over a pit.
- **Level prototyping**, since every mover's numbers are plain data that can be tuned live while you play.
- **Puzzle levels** with a lift that waits for its rider to carry them up to a bar or ledge.

## Make it yours

`createMovers` takes a list of definitions, and every behaviour is per-definition data: the path's points, speed,
mode, dwell and trigger; an elevator's column, ends, speed, platform count and direction; a belt's speed and switch
timetable; a swing's pivot, rope length, amplitude and period; a crumble's delay, fall style, gravity and respawn time;
a timed platform's on, off and warning times. Every mover also sets its thickness and whether it is solid, has
traction, acts as a belt or spring, or hurts.

Two quite different uses: a girder stage with three elevator platforms rising up a shaft and a conveyor that reverses
every three to five seconds; or a custom platform level with a swing over a pit, a shuttle between ladders, a
rider-triggered lift and a four-plank crumbling bridge.

## A quick look

A shuttle, an elevator, a belt, a swing and a crumbling step, added to a walker world:

```ts
const movers = game.platformMovers.createMovers({ movers: [
  { id: 'ferry', type: 'path', width: 24, points: [{ x: 98, y: 48 }, { x: 334, y: 48 }], speed: 30, dwell: 1, mode: 'ping-pong' },
  { id: 'up', type: 'elevator', width: 20, x: 76, top: 36, bottom: 232, speed: 20, count: 3, direction: 'up' },
  { id: 'belt', type: 'belt', width: 48, x: 128, y: 208, speed: 30, switchEvery: [3, 5] },
  { id: 'swing', type: 'swing', width: 24, pivot: { x: 240, y: 140 }, length: 80, amplitude: 0.55, period: 3.4 },
  { id: 'step', type: 'crumble', width: 16, x: 290, y: 192, delay: 0.5, respawn: 3, fall: 'drop' },
]});
world.addProvider(movers);
for (const p of movers.pieces()) drawPlank(p.x, p.y, p.width, p.warn, p.angle, p.beltOffset);
```

## Works with

- `platform-walker` — the bodies that ride the movers; the world steps them first.
- `platform-map` — the static level, and the surface contract the movers follow.
- `platform-enemies` — enemies ride movers like any body, and an idle kind becomes an item carried on a belt.
- `platform-rounds` — runs the game on top, including whether being carried into a ceiling is a crush.
- `girder-climb` — girder stages that use its conveyors and elevators.
- `platformer-2d` — for physics traversal with joints and generated courses.

## Good to know

- Surfaces are horizontal top edges: they carry riders and can stop heads, but do not push bodies sideways or collide
  with each other or the map.
- Swings stay level and their rope never collides; there is no tilting platform or seesaw.
- Paths are straight lines between points, so a curve needs more points.
- An elevator column holds at most 64 platforms, and a set at most 1,024 movers.

---

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