Kite & Wind guide: fly early, read the wind, thread the gaps

The goal and how a run works

The kite moves right at a speed the game controls. Your only input is height: hold to climb, let go to sink. The flying band runs from the grass to the cloud bank, and touching either end, or anything in between, ends the run. You start in the middle of the band, and the kite hangs still for 2 seconds or until your first press, so there is no rush at the start.

Your score is distance, stars and threads added together, and it never goes down. Every run is a newly built meadow.

How the kite really flies

The kite has weight. Holding pushes it toward a steady climb of about 211 units a second, and letting go pulls it toward a steady sink of about 194. It takes roughly a quarter of a second to swing from a full sink into a full climb. The whole band is 360 units tall, so a full climb from the grass to the clouds takes close to two seconds.

Lift and sink are nearly balanced. Holding for a little under half the time keeps the kite level, which is why short, even pulses feel like hovering. Long holds and long releases are for changing height quickly, and they take longer to undo.

Hit shapes match the outlines on screen, pulled in slightly.

Wind columns change the physics

From 6 seconds in, shaded columns appear. They are 170 to 260 units wide, which at your speed means about one to two seconds inside one.

Inside	Holding	Letting go
Updraft (teal)	Climbs fast, about 330 units a second	Still sinks, but at under 80
Downdraft (blue)	Climbs slowly, about 92 units a second	Drops fast, over 300 a second

Each column is built around a single threat. An updraft ends in a sky islet near its far side, so the danger is above you. A downdraft ends at a tree, so the danger is below you. Knowing that tells you what to do before you enter:

Updraft: enter low and spend most of the column letting go. The wind will still carry you up. Hold only if you are dropping toward something.
Downdraft: enter high and hold through it. You gain height slowly at best, so the height you bring in is the height you have when the tree arrives.

Stars inside wind columns sit where the wind naturally takes you: near the clouds in an updraft, near the grass in a downdraft. They sit close to the edge of the band, so they are risky.

Obstacles and when they arrive

Time into the run	What joins
Start	Gaps between ground trees or rocks and sky islets
6 s	Wind columns
12 s	Birds, one or two at a time
15 s	Runs of poles and wires
18 s	Islet lids over the wires, making tunnels
36 s	Birds in groups of up to three
60 s	The pace stops rising

Over that first minute, speed rises from 150 to 250 units a second, gaps shrink from 190 to 100 units tall, the time between obstacles drops from 1.6 to 0.95 seconds, and each gap can sit up to 175 units higher or lower than the last one, where at the start it moves no more than 80.

Wires

A wire run is two or three poles, 170 to 220 units apart, with wires sagging 18 to 34 units between their crossarms. The poles are set somewhat below the line you were flying, so the natural move is a small climb over the whole run. There is a star above the middle of some wires, just clear of the lowest point of the sag. After the poles, the next gap is centred a little above the tallest pole, so do not dive right after the last one.

Birds

Birds fly toward you at 40 to 90 units a second, bobbing a little up and down, and they are placed near the height you are flying at. Because they move, the space around a bird closes faster than it looks, so change height early and by a clear margin.

Scoring in numbers

Distance: 1 point per 25 units flown. That is 6 points a second at the starting speed and 10 a second at top speed.
Star: 10 points, worth one second of flying at top speed.
Thread: 15 points for being inside a gap no more than 150 units tall, with something both above and below, as you pass its far edge. Tunnels under a lid count when they are narrow enough.

Distance dominates. Lasting longer beats a few extra stars, and threads come from simply flying a narrow gap cleanly.

An early-game plan

Use the 2-second hover to settle. Your first press ends it, so do not tap by accident.
In the first 15 seconds, practise short, even pulses to hold a line. Early gaps are at least 180 units tall, so staying near the gap centre is easy.
Take the early stars while the course is slow and forgiving.

Mid and late game

Start every change of height a quarter second early. At 250 units a second, the kite travels about 60 units forward while it turns around.
Plan two obstacles ahead. From about 40 seconds, obstacles come less than a second apart and a gap can shift by 175 units, so the right height for this gap is often wrong for the next one.
Skip edge stars late. Stars sit just above the tree or just below the islet. After the first minute, missing a star costs 10 points; clipping the tree costs the run.
Stay away from the band's edges. The grass and the clouds count as hits, and a downdraft or updraft near them leaves no room.

Common mistakes

Holding all the way through a gap. The kite overshoots into the islet above.
Diving under a wire. The next pole blocks every way underneath.
Entering a downdraft low, with too little height to clear the tree at its end.

If you're stuck

Every stretch of the course is checked before you see it, assuming you switch between holding and letting go no more than ten times a second, so there is always a way through. If you keep crashing at the same kind of obstacle, it is usually timing: start the climb or the drop earlier than feels natural, and keep the kite near the middle of the band between obstacles so you have room to go either way.