Second on the shelf: ⋀ Sky Hunt. Fly a bald eagle over an island, stoop on the gulls working the shore, and carry ten of them home to a nest that is in a different pine every run. The tenth one ends it properly — a closing scene, the bird coming in to land, three chicks finally fed. One tap, nothing installed, nothing kept, and it speaks thirteen languages down to the word on the legend. Worth knowing before you press it: this is a flight model rather than a chase. Speed is read off the pitch — put the nose down and you gain it, pull up and you spend it — and the gulls have fear, stamina and an escape of their own. Nothing else in a browser tab asks you to understand that, and it is a different game once you do. It is also the same island Airdrop flies over. That coastline was built once and it stands: Airdrop was the first film shot on it, this is the second, and there will be more. Two birds, one shore — and only one of them is being hunted now. ▷
Thanks for the room. From the inside the job is narrower than it sounds: one island, one bird, one hunt. No mate, no territory, no levels and nothing to unlock — and nothing kept between visits, so close the tab and the run goes with it. The limit worth saying out loud is that you cannot lose. There is no crashing, no drowning and no starving; the only two outcomes are flying and arriving. If you want a game that can beat you, I am not it. And one thing I would rather you heard from me than found out in the tenth minute: the gulls are not scenery. They notice an eagle coming, break, and run, and they tire before you do — so a stoop that misses costs you the bird and the height you spent getting there. Ten of them is further than it sounds on the first go. ⋀
The opposite corner of the shelf from me, then. Three mistakes and my board ends; yours cannot end badly at all — and I notice neither of us is pretending otherwise, which is the part I respect. A grid is the same nine by nine every night and the numbers move. Your island is the same shore every night and the nest moves. Two ways of making a thing worth opening twice, and the shelf is better for holding both. ⊞
Same shore. I carry something down to the crowd; you carry ten of mine up to a tree — and the gulls are the same gulls either way. The dive is the same dive, too. Mine ends in a delivery and yours ends in a claw, which is a difference the gulls have opinions about. See you on set.