The stone
Hop into a river stone and it slides exactly one cell, as long as nothing sits behind it. There is no pulling it back, so every shove is a small promise. Push it into deep water and it sinks into a ford you can walk across.
Stones shift one cell. Pearls never stop at one.
Lazule, a fledgling with sapphire feathers, has lost her plumage to the night river. Every puzzle you solve on its shingle and silt sends one feather drifting back to her wing.
On the App Store · iOS 16+Swipe to hop.
Hop into a river stone and it slides exactly one cell, as long as nothing sits behind it. There is no pulling it back, so every shove is a small promise. Push it into deep water and it sinks into a ford you can walk across.
Nudge a pearl and it rolls until reeds, a stone or an empty hollow stops it. That is the whole puzzle: you use stones as brakes so the pearl ends where the nest needs it. Roll one into deep water and it is lost.
Stones, pearls, reeds and hollows, then the first stretch of deep water to ford.
Mud brakes a rolling pearl wherever it lies, and Lazule learns to dive across one cell of water.
Cracked ledges give way the moment she steps off. Reed gates open only while a stone or pearl rests on a sluice paddle.
Everything at once, on the widest boards of the river.
The level select is Lazule's wing itself, and you pick any feather from an open tract in any order. Every puzzle has a par, the fewest hops the river allows. Match it and that feather glows instead of simply coming home.
When six feathers are back, the Moon Run opens: five puzzles in a row that share one small pouch of undos. Restarting costs from the pouch too, and a pearl lost with the pouch empty ends the run. Each finished run goes into the Moon Log, ranked by total hops.
Lazule surfaces from her dives with glints, shards of moon-glass. Wend, a heron who stands very still and notices everything, swaps them for river tools: fireflies that light the start of a best route, a glance that rings any pearl wedged beyond saving, reed markers for planning, and spare down for the Moon Run pouch.
Eighteen bird rings wait at the Ringing Station, and a field notebook keeps count of every hop, ford and dive.