How to play Ashkite

A visual guide · Keep your first flight going

Your goal

Clear the flight. Keep the tank lit.

Your tank fuels your kite, absorbs damage and powers your loop. It drains while you fly. Clear entire flights of drift hulls and collect their fuel to keep going.

Simplified diagrams of a flight, a loop and the fuel barge. Positions and shapes are teaching examples.

01Steer under the hulls

Press the field to start, then drag to steer. With a keyboard, use the arrow keys or W, A, S and D; Space or Enter can also start the run.
Your guns fire straight up automatically. Move beneath the hull you want to clear.
A quick tap on the field, Space, Shift, or the Loop button triggers a loop. Let a drag finish before making a separate quick tap.
Keep moving toward useful shots and fuel. Waiting at the bottom still drains the tank.

02Clear every member, then collect

1. Follow the flight pips

Lit pips count the hulls still flying; dim pips show those cleared. Crosses are added here to make the example easy to follow. The last hull matters: individual clears earn points, but only a full flight cleared by gunfire drops its canister.

2. Fly into the fuel

Collect the falling canister to restore 27% of your tank. It is not collected automatically. Fuel above a full tank becomes a small points bonus.

If one hull escapes or you ram it, the flight becomes unavailable for a full clear and its pips turn grey. You can still score by shooting the remaining hulls.

03Read the tank as your weapon

60% to 100%

Twin

Two bolts each volley.

20% to below 60%

Single

One bolt each volley.

Below 20%

Ember · Reserve

Slower single shots, but fuel drain halves.

A hostile bullet takes 9% of a full tank; ramming a hull takes 15%.
Damage resets the sweep chain. Points already earned stay yours.
Full clears build the sweep chain and improve clear scoring. Climb and score show progress; the fuel percentage shows how much flight remains.

04Loop through a hit

Read the incoming hit, then roll

A loop costs up to 8% and lasts half a second. If a bullet or body actually meets you during the roll, a clean loop refunds what you paid and adds 2.5% when it ends. Ordinary flight drain still applies.

During the roll you cannot steer or fire. Line up before using it.
A loop that avoids no contact keeps its cost. It does not need to hit or destroy a hull to protect you.
The cooldown lasts 1.2 seconds from the start. Pressing again too soon spends nothing.
Low fuel still allows a loop: its up-front cost never takes the tank below 1%. Ongoing drain can still empty it.

05Strip the Bellows, then choose

Seven parts, three jobs

At the end of each climb, the fuel barge stays briefly. Remove its guns to reduce fire, both engines to stop its descent, and bladders to release canisters. The main hull cannot be destroyed.

Stripping all seven parts gives a large bonus and sends the barge away early. Collect remaining fuel while the short collection window lasts.
The climb break freezes the action. Continue enters a harder climb and brings fuel up to at least 40%; arriving with more keeps that extra fuel.
Climbs continue endlessly. An empty tank ends the run.
End Run is also available while flying and at a climb break. Press once to confirm, then again to finish with the score you have.

Visual Guide freezes fuel drain, movement and the loop cooldown. Closing it resumes the same run.

Play Ashkite