Dragon Rider

Dragon Rider is a side-view flying adventure over a painted kingdom of meadows, a lake town, a forest, an old mine, a raider camp, a windy mountain pass and a fortress in the clouds. Your young dragon flies on momentum: hold to flap and climb, let go to glide, dive to build speed and pull up to swoop that speed back into height. Its fire breath heats up as you use it and cools while you glide, and its talons can grab and carry almost anything.

Ten missions unlock one after another. Pluck stranded villagers off their rooftops and fly them to the safe tower, skim the lake for water to drop on burning roofs, burn raider catapults and wooden towers before the boulders flatten the mine village, chase down gliders and balloons, race Ember and Frost through ring courses, and haul supply crates over the windy pass before the final battle with the raider warship. Raiders never get hurt: they are scared off, knocked out of the sky or float away under patched parachutes.

Arrows cost hearts and nets slow you down, but your four hearts come back slowly while you glide. Each mission awards three stars, one for finishing, one for a quick time and one for losing no hearts, and keeps your high score, so every mission is worth a replay. When you just want to relax, Free Flight opens the whole kingdom with no timer and no raiders, and twelve dragon eggs to find in its corners. It plays with arrows or WASD and Space on a keyboard, or a stick and two big buttons on a phone. P pauses and M mutes.