About Skyweave
A hot-air balloon flight sim with a real model under it: position and velocity in three dimensions, wind that turns as you climb, an envelope that holds heat and a burner that spends fuel to make it. There is no rudder, and that is the game — the only control that does anything is height, so the way to change course is to climb or sink until you find a layer of air headed somewhere else. Six landscapes: three invented, and three built over real feature positions in Hoàn Kiếm, Tây Hồ and central Đà Nẵng, where twenty-four landmarks are worth crossing a valley for. Flocks, storms and strange currents arrive with five seconds of warning and pay for being ridden out; nine achievements and a hangar of balloons, baskets and burners are what the threads are for. Nothing chases you and landing is never a failure — it banks the flight and refills the tank for nothing. Drawn by the portal's own renderer over open terrain, and it makes no network request of any kind.
How to play
- Pick a landscape from Explore, then press Lift off.
- Hold the burner to heat the envelope and climb; vent to cool it and sink. The burner is the only thing that uses fuel.
- Set the wind with the dial or the arrow and bracket keys, then change height to steer: the air turns as you climb.
- Fly near landmarks, ride out storms, flocks and strange currents, and chase records.
- The flight ends when you touch down, reach the edge of the map or land on purpose. Everything is banked as threads to spend in the hangar.
Tips
- Height is your rudder. The wind bearing shifts by about 29 degrees for every 100 metres you climb, and the wind blows slightly harder higher up, so choose a height before you touch the dial.
- Come in low over landmarks. A landmark only counts if you pass within 85 metres of it while under 180 metres above the ground. Each new one pays 40 threads when you land.
- Keep the tank for climbing. Venting is free and the envelope cools on its own, so burn in short bursts. When the fuel warning shows below 20%, start looking for somewhere to come down.
- Stay up through encounters. Encounters give five seconds of warning. Riding one out adds 15 threads, and your first storm and first strange current each unlock an achievement.
- Buy a basket before a balloon. The Expedition basket burns fuel at about a third of the Wicker basket's rate. More time in the air means more distance, more encounters and more threads per flight.
Read the full Skyweave guide (5 min read)
From the developer
Skyweave began on 7 September as a kite adventure with wind, exploration and saved equipment, and the same day I turned it into a hot air balloon game with weather and wildlife encounters. The next day I added worlds based on real places from OpenStreetMap, which is where the Hanoi and Da Nang landmarks come from.
That first version was a web app behind a sign-in with a server database, so it could not run on this site. On 10 September I ported it to plain JavaScript on the small WebGL renderer I wrote for Facet Circuit. I copied the flight model expression by expression rather than rewriting it, including two orderings that are arguably bugs, because changing either would change records in existing saves. To prove the copy was exact I ran both versions side by side over 310,429 ticks across six landscapes, five seeds and four pilots, and every field matched. The port also exposed a renderer bug: one shape builder had drawn its walls inside out since Facet Circuit, unseen until Skyweave built ninety-metre mountains with it.
The trees are from Low poly Trees and other nature by Gest, the buildings, piers and boats from POLYGON Battle Royale Pack by Synty Studios, and a power pole from Low Poly Atmospheric Locations Pack by Palmov Island.
Son Hoang, who made Skyweave
Update history
- Added music: Northern Lights from alkakrab's Free Viking Folk Music Pack, under the wind and the burner.
- A reserve tank saved from an earlier landing is now used on your next real lift-off; it used to be lost to the flight drawn behind the title screen.
- Synty houses, warehouses, piers, boats and rocks replace the old props, with a real loading bar and screens that fit every size.
- Modelled pines, poplars and palms from Gest's low-poly nature pack.
- The launch screen uses the full width on a laptop, text scales with the screen, and the in-flight hint no longer covers the readout on a phone.
- Rebuilt to run in any browser with no sign-in: the wind is now one dial, with hold pads to burn and vent, and your sound, map and wind settings are remembered between visits.
- Balloon worlds based on real places, with landmarks to discover, and animated wildlife in every landscape.
- First version as a kite adventure, turned the same day into balloon flight with random weather and wildlife encounters.
Questions
Does Skyweave save my progress?
Yes, in this browser. Threads, owned and equipped gear, your balloon design, landmarks found, achievements, landscapes visited, best speed and height, total distance, sound and wind settings are all kept. A flight is only banked when it lands.
Can I crash or lose a flight?
No. Nothing attacks you and storms cannot bring you down. Touching the ground, drifting past the edge of the map or pressing Land all end the flight the same way, and the next flight always starts with a full tank.
Can I play it on a phone?
Yes. Hold BURNER on the right to climb, VENT on the left to sink, and drag the WIND dial between them: the angle sets direction, the distance from the centre sets strength.
Is there an ending?
There is no final level. The long-term goals are the 24 landmarks across the three city maps, nine achievements, and a hangar of four balloons, three baskets and three burners bought with threads.
