Harbor Rush guide

What Harbor Rush is

Harbor Rush is the arcade mode of Harbor Escape. It uses the Berth Sort rules — tap boats onto the freighter of their color, park the rest in berths — but the harbor never empties. New boats keep appearing, faster and faster, and the run lasts until the harbor jams. There are no levels and no stars; the only goal is a higher score than last time. Rush unlocks from More Modes once you have cleared Berth Sort level 20.

How a run works

• The harbor is a 7 × 9 grid with five boat colors, four berths and three hearts.
• A run starts with four boats on the water and freighters queued at the top. A new boat appears roughly every 1.2 seconds at first. Every 12 seconds the gap gets shorter, down to under half a second late in a run.
• After about 15 seconds, some boats start arriving already blocked by others, and the share of blocked arrivals keeps climbing over the first two minutes.
• The rising tide: every 30 seconds, the rightmost empty berth floods and can no longer be used. This continues until only two berths are left. Your parking space shrinks as the pace grows.
• The clock at the top shows how long you have survived. It is not a countdown — nothing ends because of time.

How a run ends

A run is over when a boat needs to park and every berth is full, when you lose your last heart by tapping blocked boats, or when there is no room left on the board for a new boat to appear. The result screen shows "The harbor is jammed", how long you survived and your best combo. Your best score is kept on your device so you have something to beat next time. Where the game is played with ads, you can revive once per run with an extra heart if you ran out of hearts.

How scoring works

Rush scoring rewards two things: loading boats directly onto the freighter, and surviving long enough to raise the wave multiplier.

Action	Points
Boat sails straight onto the freighter	1 × combo × wave
Boat parks in a berth	1 × wave, and your combo resets
A full freighter departs	8 × wave

Combo: if your next direct load comes within 1.6 seconds of the previous one, the combo grows. Parking a boat or crashing into a blocked one breaks it. Wave: the wave number goes up every 30 seconds and multiplies every point you score. A boat loaded in wave 6 on a combo of 5 is worth 30 points — the same boat parked in wave 1 is worth one.

Strategy

Survival first, combos second

Because the wave multiplier grows with time, the biggest scores come from simply lasting longer. A cautious run that reaches wave 6 will usually beat a flashy run that jams in wave 3. Treat combos as a bonus you collect when the board allows it.

Chain your taps on the current color

When a freighter docks, find all of its color on the board before you tap. Then tap the free ones in quick succession: three fast direct loads build the combo and fill the freighter, and the departure bonus is multiplied by the wave as well.

Clear the berths at every chance

Parked boats board automatically when their freighter docks, so a parked boat is not wasted — but it holds a berth until then. Since the tide keeps flooding berths, try to keep at least two free at all times. If you are down to one, stop chasing combos and only make moves that load the current freighter.

Park the next color, not a random one

When you must park, prefer a boat whose color matches one of the freighters waiting in the queue. It will leave its berth soon and may even trigger a chain when its freighter arrives.

Unblock early

Once blocked boats start arriving, every jammed boat is a future problem. Use quiet moments — right after a freighter leaves — to free boats that are boxed in, even if it costs a combo.

Never tap blind

With only three hearts and no way to get them back during a run (apart from the optional revive), a crash late in a run is very expensive. At high speed, it is better to pause for half a second than to tap a boat whose path you have not checked.

Rush compared with Tide Challenge

Both modes are endless, but they feel different. Harbor Rush is about speed: boats appear one at a time on a steady, accelerating clock, berths flood on a timer, and there are no boosters. Tide Challenge is about planning: boats arrive in waves, you can bring boosters, and the score is counted in freighters and boats loaded. If you enjoy reading a board carefully, start with Tide; if you like reflexes, Rush is your mode.