Turbo Pudding
High above the clouds, at the top of the Skyward Tree, there is a nest. On the night our story starts, Mama is singing in it: “Sleep now, Tirra. The Tree is singing to you.” Lee is already fast asleep. Tirra, as you can see in the picture at the top, is not.
Then the old cuckoo clock strikes thirteen. The Tree’s song breaks off, a storm rushes in, and both fledglings are blown all the way down to the roots. Here is who they meet on the long way back up.
Tirra jumps first
Tirra is the apricot one, with a springy crest of three feathers. Tirra is brave and always jumps first. Neither fledgling can fly yet: their wings are little stubs that flap when they jump and help them float back down.
Each of them blows their own bubbles. Tirra’s are small and quick, and they fly further than Lee’s. That makes Tirra the one to send after a spirit on the far side of a ledge.
Lee climbs anyway
Lee is the lilac one, with a single curl on top and a long tail feather rolled into a curl of its own. Lee is a dreamy sleepyhead and is afraid of heights, and climbs to the top anyway.
Lee’s bubbles are big and slow, and they rise gently, which makes them easier to ride. Hold jump and you bounce from bubble to bubble, up toward the next ledge.
Both fledglings have a life of their own when you leave them alone. Stand still and they blink and look around. After a while they stretch, hop, peek or twirl, and after about 18 seconds they yawn and take a nap.
That piece of the song isn’t the only one. Every room hides a golden note, fifty in all, and finding every one leads to the true ending.
The spirits who lost their songs
The Tree is full of little spirits, and every one of them has lost its song. You can see it: the lost song hangs over each head as a small gray scribble of a cloud. When a spirit gets angry, the scribble grows into a tiny storm, with drops and the odd spark of lightning.
Without their songs, the spirits have turned prickly and grumpy. But every bubble the fledglings blow carries a note. Catch a spirit, pop the bubble, and its song comes back, along with something tasty.
Each of them moves in a different way. Chirpets hop, Spotkins fly, Jellydrops float and Skimmers are quick on their feet. Two of them need a trick. Shellie hides in her shell from a bubble in front of her, so try from behind or wait till she peeks out. A Nimbling is heavy: one bubble only wraps her, and it takes a second one to catch her.
The first two levels are a meadow, and there you meet Stomplings and Chirpets. The rest live higher up the Tree.
Old Dandel
At the end of the meadow waits Old Dandel, a big white dandelion clock with leaf eyebrows and a seed mustache. He bounces around his room, throws fans of seeds, and once he’s hurt, he calls in Stomplings to help.
Bubbles can’t hold him. Fireflies can. Firefly bubbles keep rising in his room: pop them, and the fireflies fly to Old Dandel and wear the spell down. Every hit blows seeds off his back, so he goes bald from the back first.
When the scribble over his head finally bursts, Old Dandel wakes up from the spell, laughs, showers the room with treats and floats away. A moment later the fledglings are rising on two of his seeds while he calls after them: “Hold on tight, little ones!”
Further up the Tree
Higher up there are two more bosses: Old Drizzle, a big gray-blue cloud who cries rain, and Nimbo, with three cloud sheep circling round him. And if you linger too long in a room, dusk falls and the Duskmoth comes drifting through the walls, a big soft night moth with pale spots on its wings. Empty bubbles glow at dusk and draw it away. Pop three at once to bring the light back.
Play alone, or with a friend on one keyboard: Tirra on the arrow keys, Lee on A, D and W. The first two levels are free to play in your browser at tirralee.com; the full game is $4.99, paid once. More about the game is on its Tirralee page.
