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Swinging rope

Free packv3.0.0-12DPhysics

A rope for a body to fire and swing on, on a `physics-2d` world: a ninja rope that wraps round corners, a grappling hook, or a straight grapple arm that climbs ledges. The body, the world and its walking and jumping are your game's; this is the rope.

This is a Free pack. Every phaser.io account can use it in their games.

Released October 19, 2026

Swinging rope: a screenshot of its demo
A note about these graphics

Expansion packs don't come with graphics. This screenshot is one way of drawing what the pack does, made for its demo: none of the sprites, tiles or backgrounds in it are in the pack.

That's by design. A pack is a game's logic, mechanics and effects, and it works with whatever art you give it. Some packs draw effects, backdrops or 3D scenes of their own, but none carries a game's sprites.

So the look is yours. Make the art on phaser.io, bring your own, or let your agent draw it in code: the same pack can look like anything.

What it does

You create a rope for a body with game.ropeSwing.create(world, body, options), giving it the surfaces it may hook and wrap round, the same shapes as the world's static bodies. fire(target) sends the rope towards a point and hooks the first hookable surface along the line within range. The body then hangs on a one-sided joint to the rope's last bend, so the rope pulls only when it is taut: the body swings as a real pendulum, and flies on with its momentum when you release(). reel pulls it in or lets it out at a speed you set.

As the body swings, the rope wraps round the corners of the convex surfaces it sweeps past and unwraps as it swings back, so it can loop round a pillar and hang from the far side. That is the classic ninja rope. Turn wrapping off and it is a straight grapple arm instead, which lets go when terrain crosses it; give it a mantle reach and a hook on the top of a ledge climbs the body up over the edge.

Call step(dt) after each world step. The rope reports what happened as events (hook, miss, wrap and unwrap with the corner, release, jam, mantle), and line() returns its polyline from the hook through each bend to the body, for your game to draw.

Features

  • Fire and hook — the first hookable surface along the line within range; a miss lets go of the old rope.
  • A real pendulum — the body swings on the physics world and keeps its momentum on release.
  • Corner wrapping — wraps round convex surfaces and boxes as it swings and unwraps on the way back, up to bends corners.
  • Reel in and pay out — at reelSpeed, down to the shortest length, with paying out optional.
  • Mantling — with a mantle reach, a hook on a ledge's top climbs the body over it in mantleTime.
  • Two presets — ninja (range 420, wraps, pays out) and grapple (range 340, straight, reels in only, mantles within 64).
  • Events and a line — everything that happened since the last drain(), and the rope's polyline to draw.
  • Geometry helpers — segmentEnters and surfaceCorners, the tests it uses itself.

Good for

  • Rope-swinging platformers and courses — swing across pits and gaps; ninja-rope-2d is a course game built on it.
  • Artillery games with a ninja rope — a rope that wraps round the terrain, in the style of Worms.
  • Grappling-hook action games — fire, reel in and pull up onto ledges with the grapple preset.
  • Climbing games — reach a ledge, mantle over it, and fire again.

Make it yours

Each rope takes its options when it is made; the pack has none of its own. Start from a preset and change any part: range, shortest, reelSpeed, wrap, payOut, mantle, mantleTime and bends, plus the surfaces it may hook, any of which can be marked as not hookable.

Two different uses: a ninja rope with wrapping and paying out on and a long range, for a character swinging round a cave of pillars and letting out rope to drop lower; and a grapple arm with wrapping off, reeling in only, and a mantle reach of 64, for a platformer hero who hooks the top of a ledge and climbs onto it.

A quick look

A ninja rope fired, reeled with the keys, stepped after the world and released:

const rope = game.ropeSwing.create(world, runner, { ...game.ropeSwing.presets.ninja, surfaces });
rope.fire({ x: aimX, y: aimY });             // hooks the first hookable surface along the line, within range
game.step('rope', dt => {
    rope.reel(keys.up ? 1 : keys.down ? -1 : 0, dt);
    world.step(dt);
    rope.step(dt);                           // after the world: wrap, unwrap, set the length
    for (const e of rope.drain()) if (e.kind === 'wrap') clink();
});
rope.release();                              // flies on with its momentum

Works with

  • physics-2d — the world and the body the rope swings: a headless world, or the game's own.
  • ninja-rope-2d — rope-swinging courses with gates, hazards and a goal, built on this pack.
  • physics-rope — for ropes with weight that hang, drape and are cut.

Good to know

  • The rope is straight between bends and has no weight of its own: it is a tether, not a hanging rope, which is physics-rope.
  • Wrapping is found from the corners the rope sweeps over in a step, so a rope swinging very fast past a thin surface can wrap a step late.
  • Surfaces are convex polygons and boxes.
  • The body is pulled straight towards its last bend: it does not slide round a corner it touches; the rope does.

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