How to Play Fireboy and Watergirl Alone: One Keyboard, Both Characters

Fireboy and Watergirl is a two-player game — the right hand has the arrow keys for Fireboy, the left hand has W, A and D for Watergirl, and two people at one laptop each take a side. But most people who search for the Forest Temple play it alone, and that is completely fine. It just changes how you should approach a room.

Rule one: never move both at once

Almost every death a solo player has comes from pressing both sets of keys together and walking one character into the wrong pool while watching the other. The fix is boring and it works: move one character to a safe ledge, take your hand off those keys, then move the other. There are only a handful of levels in the Forest Temple where the timing forces both characters to move at the same time — usually an elevator that drops the moment a button is released — and even there, you can often park a box on the button instead.

Rule two: plan the room from the doors backwards

Each level fits on one screen, so before you press a key, find the red door and the blue door. Then trace the path Fireboy needs and the path Watergirl needs. Lava is a road for Fireboy and a wall for Watergirl; water is the reverse. Green goo is a wall for both. Whatever is left blocking one of the paths — a platform that is too high, a wall that needs a lever — is the puzzle, and the lever or button that solves it is always on the screen. Work out who has to pull it and in what order before anybody moves.

Rule three: the doors first, the diamonds second

You finish a level by having both characters standing in their doors at the same moment. Diamonds affect the grade, not the exit. On your first run through a room, skip the diamonds that sit above lava or behind a timed platform; get the door, get the grade, and come back for an A once you know the room's layout. The level select screen keeps every room open once you have beaten it.

Which levels are the solo traps

• The first elevator rooms — the platform only rises while the button is held. Walk one character onto the button, ride the other up, then look for a box to replace the button-holder.
• Rooms with two levers on opposite sides — one character flips both while the other waits by the exit; do not split the work.
• The long-corridor levels near the end — one character has to run the full width of the screen while the other holds a button. This is the only place a second player is genuinely faster, but it is still doable alone if you accept a B grade.

If you get stuck

Press the pause button in the top corner and restart the room; earlier levels are not lost. And remember the hazards are colour-coded for a reason: if a level looks impossible, you have probably assumed a character is blocked by a pool they can actually walk straight through.