Puff Drift

A cosy balloon climb through seventeen skies.

Puff Drift is a gentle flying game. You steer a kitten's hot-air balloon up out of an evening meadow and through seventeen skies, from Cloudshoal and the Starfield to stranger places above them: the Sunken Tide, the Paper Forest, the Clockworks. Every sky has its own creatures, its own music, and one giant thing hanging in it to fly past.

Blow a bubble to catch the creatures. The more you carry, the heavier you get, and a full basket drifts you back down home. The first of each kind moves into its own little house on the board; the rest are traded at the cottage for petals. Spend petals on a bigger balloon to fly higher, a bigger basket to carry more and a lantern that reaches further, or on hats, bows and keepsakes inside the cottage. There are 42 creatures to find, and catching every kind in a sky opens the one above it.

It's gentle, but there's some challenge. Higher up, thornkites and storm clouds can knock you about, shake a creature out of your net or send you home early, and there's an optional hard mode if you want more at stake. There's a little reading, like the names of skies and creatures, and a Journal of quieter things to do between flights: a field guide, a photo studio, creature concerts, a sanctuary and more.

Feedback is very welcome. If anything felt confusing, slow or broken, please say so in the comments below.

Controls

Keyboard and mouse

• W A S D or the arrow keys — fly: up fires the burner, down lets air out to sink, left and right steer
• Mouse — aim
• Click, Space or Enter (or almost any letter key) — hold to blow a bubble, let go to catch
• Esc settings (pauses the game) · F11 fullscreen · M mute
• Shift look inside your basket · F9 the Journal

Touch (phone or tablet, held sideways)

• In the meadow, tap things to use them, or tap the open sky to take off
• In flight, hold your finger where you want the balloon to go. Touch a creature to blow a bubble at it, and lift your finger to catch. Fly close to creatures and the bubble starts by itself.
• The gear in the top corner opens settings, and the book in the other corner opens the Journal.

Gamepad

• Left stick or D-pad to fly, either trigger for the burner, right stick to aim
• A, B, X or Y — hold to blow a bubble, let go to catch (they also press buttons)
• Start settings · Back the Journal

The settings also have a calmer camera, keyboard pilot (play without a mouse), tap-to-hold bubbles, two-finger flight for touch screens, and hard mode.

Before you start

• Plays in a desktop browser with keyboard, mouse or gamepad, and on Android phones and tablets by touch. Hold a phone sideways.
• The first load is about 75 MB, so give it a minute on a slow connection.
• Your progress saves in this browser on this device, so you can come back to it. A private window, or clearing this site's data, starts you over.

Privacy

Puff Drift sends anonymous gameplay events to PostHog (servers in the EU) to help me improve it: when the page opens and how long loading took, how long you play, each flight, catches, skies reached, purchases and settings changed, taps that hit nothing, idle pauses and frame rate. Each event carries the game version, your platform and a random ID made in your browser. It never sends your name, email, itch account or anything you type (there is no typing in the game). No account and no sign-in.

To switch it off, press Esc (Start on a controller, or the gear in the top corner on a touch screen) and click playtest data: ON at the bottom of the settings card. It changes to OFF, deletes anything not yet sent, and stays off in this browser. One “page opened” event is sent as the page starts loading, before the game can ask you.