Gust: You Are the Wind

You are the wind. Nobody sees you. A balloon slips from a child's hand at dawn, and with one finger you push it up over the market, past the bunting and the chimney pots, to her window. That is the whole game, and it is also a life: one city, one day and one night, seven things carried by the air, from a red balloon at sunrise to a paper boat out in a storm before dawn. HOW IT FEELS Swipe to push. Hold a finger to carry. Tap to nudge. There are no buttons and no joystick, only the air you make and a world that answers it honestly. The balloon rides your gusts. The paper boat cannot feel the wind at all, so you lift sluice gates by ringing their bells and turn mill wheels to run the water. The ember lights wicks whose heat lifts it. The paraglider needs air across its wing and threads rings through the sky. The cloud rains what it carries on the fires below and drinks again over water. The kite's string catches on hooks. The lantern's flame gutters in hard air and comes back beside a lamp. Then the weather turns and the boat is out in it, on a night harbour with the swell running and the lighthouse turning. Every level asks something new of the same one finger, and the game tells you plainly why you lost. HOW IT LOOKS Every frame is painted: wet edges, pooled pigment, paper grain, a sky that turns from dawn to noon to dusk to night as you play. The city lives around you, with birds, smoke, fireflies, laundry on the line and people who duck when a hat goes past. The music is strings and a harp, and it stays calm; it steps back, just for a moment, whenever something happens you need to hear. WHAT YOU DO - Carry seven heroes through eighty levels, ten to a chapter, each chapter harder than the last - Cross a checkpoint on the way, or the goal will wait for you - Find the trophy hidden off the path in every level, and the sketchbook pages - Beat the clock for points, earn medals for grace and speed, and lose three lives before the day starts over - Play the Mischief levels: hats, wigs and newspapers, all yours to steal - Short tutorials with real words before every new hero, and a hint from the sky when you are stuck AN HONEST DEAL The whole game is free. Every chapter, every level, no paywall anywhere: you play it all by playing it. Ads pay for it, and they are kept to a leash — one after every second level you finish, never in the first 45 seconds of a session, never twice inside twenty seconds, never more than ten in a sitting, and never in the middle of a level. The ads you choose to watch, for a hint or another life, are always your choice and push the rest further away. One purchase removes them for good. No timers, no energy, no loot boxes. Your progress saves to your Apple account and works offline. Gust is made by one person for anyone who has ever watched a balloon go.