Wingbeat is one button and gravity. There is one piece of knowledge that separates a score of five from a score of forty, and it is not reflexes — it is knowing exactly how high one beat lifts you, and therefore where in the gap to aim.
Objective
Space, a click, or a tap anywhere gives one beat of the wings. That is the whole control scheme. Gravity does everything else: let go and you sink, leave it too long and you sink fast.
Thread the gap between each pair of posts — one point per pair. Touching a post or the ground ends the run. There is no ceiling to bump into, but the posts run up out of sight, so climbing over one is not an option.
Why you should aim low
A beat is an impulse, not a force. Each flap assigns your vertical speed outright rather than adding to it, which is what keeps the bird predictable: the height one beat buys you is always the same, whatever you were doing beforehand.
That height is about 50 units in every setting — and the gaps are 100 to 134 units tall. So one beat carries you roughly a third to a half of the way up a gap. Aim at the middle and a single beat overshoots into the top rim; aim low and the same beat puts you in the centre.
The three settings are deliberately tuned against that number. A beat has to lift enough to be worth making, but less than the usable height of the gap — otherwise one beat from the bottom would carry you clean through the top and the gap would be impossible to hold rather than merely hard.
Weather
| Setting | Gap | Posts every | Speed | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fledgling | 134 | 196 | 96 | a wide gap and an easy pace |
| Flier | 114 | 172 | 118 | the pace it is meant to be played at |
| Gale | 100 | 156 | 138 | narrower, faster, and the posts sway |
On Gale the gaps sway by 22 units around where each post was placed — slowly enough to track, which is the point. An earlier version swung them across the entire reachable band at 168 units a second, which was not a difficulty but a lottery.
Medals
| Medal | Points |
|---|---|
| Bronze | 10 |
| Silver | 20 |
| Gold | 30 |
| Platinum | 40 |
The bar under the top row fills toward whichever medal is next, and the one you have earned shows as a disc beside the pause button.
Controls
| Action | Keyboard | Mouse | Touch |
|---|---|---|---|
| Flap | Space ↑ Enter | click the sky | tap the sky |
| Pause | Esc P | the pause button | the pause button |
| Restart | R | — | — |
After a crash, one more press starts the next run straight away.
Strategy
- Aim low in the gap. One beat lifts about a third of its height, so targeting the middle overshoots into the top rim. This is the single biggest improvement available to you.
- Small steady taps hold a line far better than one big flap followed by a long fall.
- Watch the gap, not the bird. Your height is predictable; the gap's position is the information you need.
- On Gale, read the sway before you commit. It moves slowly enough to track if you are looking at it.
- Start on Fledgling to learn the beat height, then move to Flier. The lift is the same in every setting, so the timing you learn transfers directly.
Questions
Why do I keep hitting the top of the gap?
You are aiming at the middle. One beat lifts about 50 units, and the gap is 100 to 134 — aim near the bottom and a single beat lands you centred.
Does the bird's hitbox match the sprite?
It is deliberately smaller — a 10-unit circle against a sprite about 13 across — so near misses read as near misses rather than unfair deaths.
Can I fly over the posts?
No. There is no ceiling, but the shafts extend 200 units above the visible sky.
Does the difficulty change with my window size?
No. Everything is computed in a fixed 320×480 space and scaled to fit, so the handling is identical on a phone and a desktop.
Other guides
- Block Drop — SRS rotation, wall kicks and T-spin scoring
- Fruit Link — the two-turn path rule and board motion
- Minefield — chording, safe first click and efficiency scoring
- All guides