Pulse Flight.

How to play Pulse Flight

1. Choose Start flying from the main menu, or open Passages to pick any unlocked passage in any world you have reached. The glider waits at the start with a short tip for that passage until you hold.
2. Hold to climb and release to glide down. Your first hold launches the flight and starts the music. Keep the glider inside the glowing glass edges and away from crystals; touching either ends the attempt.
3. Listen to the beat. The bends in each passage are placed on beats and half-beats of its song, so turning in rhythm usually traces the safest line. The result screen shows how many of your turns landed on the beat.
4. Fly close to each pearl to collect it. Finishing is enough to unlock the next passage, so learn the route first, then return for all three pearls in a single flight to earn gold.
5. After a crash the passage resets at once and the progress bar marks where you fell. Hold again to launch the next attempt immediately. Use Pause to take a break; resuming counts you back in on the beat.
6. Try Practice from the passage list or the pause menu. It adds a checkpoint at every section, lets you place your own flags, can slow the flight to 85% or 70%, and can show the gold line. Practice never changes medals.

Make your move

About Pulse Flight

Pulse Flight is a one-button flying game about a small glass glider and the music it flies through. The glider always travels forward. Hold the screen, the mouse button, Space or the Up arrow and it climbs at a steady angle; let go and it glides down at the same angle. Changing direction takes a short, smooth moment, so the skill is not frantic tapping but timing: reading the passage ahead and turning at the right moment. When you get it right, you are turning on the beat of the song, because that is where the passages bend.

Every passage is composed together with its music. Each level is a sequence of musical sections, such as a calm intro, a long glide, a rolling wave, a narrow squeeze, a field of floating crystals or a quick zigzag drop, and each section sets both the shape of the glass and the energy of the song. The route turns on half-beats of the track, drums and hi-hats fill in as a section builds, a drum fill leads into each drop, and the lead melody follows the gold line up and down. Nothing is sampled or downloaded: the drums, bass, pads, arpeggios and melodies are synthesized in your browser as you fly.

Forty passages are spread across five worlds that follow a day from dawn to night. Opal Estuary teaches clean turns in pale green glass. Amber Observatory adds speed gates that quicken or slow your flight while the tempo stays the same. Indigo Conservatory introduces crystals and wall blooms that swell on every beat, so you slip past them between beats. Nocturne Reef glows in the dark and brings needle gates that steepen your angle and shrink your core. Aurora Spire closes the journey with mirror gates that invert the controls. Each world ends with a longer finale, and the tempo and pace rise from world to world.

Each passage has three pearls placed along its gold line. Finish a passage for bronze, catch one or two pearls in the same flight for silver, or all three for gold, up to 120 medal points. Your best percentage, attempts, medal and on-beat rhythm score are saved on this device, and a faint ghost of your best flight can fly beside you. Medal points unlock new gliders, and clearing worlds unlocks new trails, from sparks and beat notes to a comet and an aurora ribbon. Every glider shares exactly the same small collision core, so looks never change the challenge.

Pulse Flight is built to be fair. The glowing core at the centre of the glider is the whole hitbox, much smaller than its wings. Glass edges are drawn exactly on their collision line, pulsing crystals show a dotted ring at their full reach, and every one of the forty passages, every daily flight and the endless current is checked by automated flights that replay a gold route through the real game rules. On a phone held upright the passage turns so the glider flies up the screen with the whole width to play in; hold the phone sideways for the classic side view.

A little help for your next high score

• Look ahead, not at the glider. The passage never changes between attempts and its forward speed only changes at gates, so the view gives you a reliable read of the next two or three bends.
• Turn on the beat. When a section feels hard, stop watching and listen: most turns sit on the kick drum or exactly halfway between beats, and the lead melody hints at whether the route rises or falls.
• Pass pulsing crystals between beats. They swell on the beat and shrink right after it. The dotted ring shows how far each one can reach.
• After a speed gate the music keeps its tempo but the bends come sooner. After a mirror gate, holding dives; the glider glows pink until a gate switches it back.
• Use Practice flags to rehearse one section at a time, then finish in a medal flight. Turning on the gold line and the slower practice speeds helps with the steep needle sections.
• A bronze is progress. Unlock the next passage first and come back for the pearls once you know the route; your best medal is never lowered.

Good questions