You fly a little prop plane over three seas full of islands. Eight missions: balloons, raiders, cargo ships, bombers, radar towers, an escort run, the Crimson Ace and an airship the size of a village. Nobody gets hurt. Every pilot you shoot down floats home under a parachute.
Press play
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Controls
W A S D or the arrows: fly. Up climbs and down dives. You can swap that in the pause menu.
Space: guns. They never run out.
Shift: boost. It runs down and fills back up.
E: fire a rocket at whatever has the red diamond on it.
Q: barrel roll. Nothing can hit you while you roll.
P or Esc: pause.
Touch: your left thumb is the stick. Fire, Boost, Rocket and Roll are on the right, and the guns fire by themselves when something is in your sights.
The eight missions
Target Practice: pop ten balloons round the airfield.
Scramble! nine raiders in three groups. You get a wingman.
Supply Run: sink three cargo ships guarded by gunboats.
Bomber Stream: stop seven bombers before they reach the airfield.
Radar Hill: knock down three radar towers ringed with flak guns.
Escort Duty: keep a slow transport alive across Ember Reach.
The Crimson Ace: their best pilot, in a black plane with red wings.
Iron Cloud: the airship. Engines first, then the body.
Finish mission 2 to open Endless Patrol, where the groups keep getting bigger until your plane gives up.
Night flights
After Iron Cloud, four more missions open over the Moonlit Shoals. They are a little bit spooky and not at all nasty.
Bat Season: three clouds of bats. They do not shoot. They nibble, then flap off ahead of you, which is when to get them.
Lantern Run: sixteen rings to fly through, in order, against the clock.
The Ghost Ship: a glowing galleon that throws ghost lights. Shoot the lights or roll, and save rockets for the ship.
Phantom Cloud: the airship is back, pale and full of bats.
Ring runs
Three courses, one for each daytime sea: Coral Rings, Frost Rings and Ember Rings. They open after mission 2.
No enemies. Fly through the middle of the yellow ring, then the next one.
Every ring gives back some boost, so a clean line means you can boost the whole way.
Three stars for beating the time. A fast plane from the workshop helps.
Reading the screen
Yellow boxes are what the mission wants. Red boxes are things that shoot back.
The yellow arrow at the edge points to the nearest yellow box.
A green ring means your bullets will bend toward that target.
A red diamond means a rocket will follow it.
The radar has you in the middle, facing up. The white square is the airfield.
A green plus is a crate. Fly through it for repairs or two more rockets.
Staying in the air
Get behind a raider. From the front you only get a second before you pass each other.
If bullets are coming from behind, roll, then boost and turn.
Flak bursts where you were going, so keep turning near gunboats and flak guns.
Rockets do far more to ships, towers and the airship than guns do.
Bombers and the Ace always drop a crate. Raiders sometimes do.
The sea and the hills only scrape you, but every scrape costs some of your plane.
Stars, coins and the hangar
One star: finish the mission.
Two stars: finish with at least half your plane, and half of anything you were protecting.
Three stars: do that inside the time shown in the briefing.
Coins buy three levels each of Guns, Engine, Armour and Rocket rack in the hangar. After the last mission the levels never stop, they just cost more.
Cadet gives you a tougher plane and more aim help. Ace gives you neither.
Build your own plane
The hangar has three plane slots. Pick one and press Open the workshop.
Build from ten parts: body, round body, nose cone, wing, fin, engine, cockpit, gun, wheel and slope. Sixteen colours.
Parts change how it flies. Engines add speed. Wings and fins add turning. Body adds armour. Guns fire faster the more you fit. Everything adds weight, and weight slows you down.
It needs at least one engine, one cockpit, one gun and four wing pieces before it will fly.
Parts cost coins. The price is the number next to each part: an engine is 18, a gun is 14, wings are 3. Each slot remembers the most you have paid, so you only pay when a plane is worth more than that.
Bullets leave from where you put the guns, and propellers spin where you put the engines.
Start again from Classic, Twin or Dart, or press Random for a surprise.
Operations: missions for ever
Finish the first eight missions to open Operations. Each one is a new mission the game makes up, with its own code name.
Win one and your rank goes up by one, and the next is a little harder. Every tenth is an airship.
Ranks run from Cadet to Sky Legend, and keep counting after that.
How it is made
Sky Squadron runs on the small renderer written for Duck Kart, with no game engine and no downloaded pictures or sounds.
Each sea is about ten islands grown from a number, so Coral Sea always has the same shape.
Every plane, ship and tree is made from boxes, balls and cones.
Enemy pilots pick a target, lead their shots, break away when they get too close and weave when they are being hit.
The marching music, the propeller and the guns are made by code.
