Aerolune

Leg one — Annonay, the paper valley. The striped balloon left the ground under a violet evening sky, and I learned the rhythm quickly: a short touch on the burner to climb, a pause to sink. The cloud banks stood in tall columns with narrow gaps between them, and paper lanterns hung in the air for anyone steady enough to collect them.
Leg two — Versailles and its palace gardens. A little longer than the first, a little quicker too. I landed at the finish beam with most of the lanterns aboard, and the map gave me all three stars for it. Each leg on the dotted route opens only when the one before it is done, so there was no skipping ahead.
Leg eight — the Alpine Pass. Here the clouds gave way to rock spires with snow on their tips, and on later legs they began to shift as I passed. Longer stretches carry checkpoint beacons, up to three on the last legs, and when a flight ended early I could resume from the last one saved. Cappadocia and the Himalayas still waited further on.
Leg sixteen — Moonrise, the last light. Sixteen legs and 48 stars in all.
Night flight was a different kind of entry: ninety seconds between dusk and dawn, with the sky speeding up the longer I stayed aloft. Each kilometer counted for one point, each lantern five, and holding on to the full ninety seconds added fifty for a dawn landing. The flight log keeps up to 25 runs with the date, distance, lanterns and score.
Logbook — Between flights I read the timeline of 32 dated entries, from a priest's little balloon in 1709 to the Montgolfier brothers and later record flights, and tried the ten-question quiz with fifteen seconds an answer. The logbook gathers twelve flight figures and twelve badges, such as First Ascent and Halfway Home. It all runs offline, with no account, and haptics and the twinkling sky can be switched off.