These days all of the cool kids want to fly to the right. They're buying fancy upgrades and using their slingshots and catapults to launch themselves, gathering treasure and defeating enemies as they sail rightward, mocking the rest of us as they go. Do not fear! Developer Arcadebra has said "No! We shall no longer fly to the right. We shall fly as gravity intends us to, and the flying direction shall be UP! Straight up. Into the sky." To illustrate the seriousness of their convictions, they have released Higher!, a flying game that defies those who would force us to the right. Well, it's more of a floating game. But you do float straight up.
The incredibly simple goal of Higher! is to get, well, higher. An unassuming little house sits on the ground patiently, surrounded by a picket fence, next to some picturesque trees. Suddenly a balloon floats by and gets caught on the roof, pulling the house skyward, freeing it of its mundane existence. This pleases the house greatly, and when another passing balloon gets caught on the roof, an adventure is born.
Sail into the wild blue yonder with the help of these friendly balloons. Mouse over a balloon and it will happily join your journey, elevating your tiny dwelling to greater heights. Use either the [WASD] or [arrow] keys to steer the house through the ether, avoiding the evil bombs that can burst your brave little balloons and send your home plummeting towards terra firma, along with your hopes and dreams. Click and drag those nasty bombs into each other, making them explode, and you're rewarded with coins. Mouse over these metaphorical pennies from heaven to collect them, and we've come full-circle, control scheme-wise.
Your coinage can be used to purchase upgrades for your tiny cottage and its lofty quest. Press [P] or [space] to pause the game and access the menu system where the upgrades can be found. Increase the number of explosions it takes to pop your balloons or increase the money you get from bombs, among others. Unlock various achievements by reaching certain heights or detonating enough bombs, and win even more money. Each balloon you collect fills the Surprise Meter. When this bar of whimsy is filled, you get a surprise. Surprise!
Analysis: We'll address this point right away, because I know what you're thinking, but Higher! is in no way related to any feature film you may have seen recently. An "inspired by" acknowledgment might have been nice, but that could open up an enormous can of copyright lawyers disguised as worms. Let's never speak of that again.
Unlike those fancy newfangled fly-by-night (to-the-right) games, Higher! is refreshingly simple, from the blue and white palette to the soothing music to the gameplay itself. It only gets complex when you need to use both the keyboard and the mouse to navigate, but if you're quick enough with the mouse, you can let your house sail along happily without a lot of keyboard use.
In similar games, you generally get one attempt to fly or sail or slide as far as you can, and access to upgrades is restricted to the end of the level only. Higher! lets you pause the game at any time and open the upgrades menu. Your purchase is immediately applied, without having to literally restart from ground zero. Get it? Because the house is actually on the ground at the beginning? So that's ground zero, see, and then... oh nevermind. Anyway, your progress is automatically saved through some sort of Intrawebs wizardry, so there's no need to fret about what happens to your very brave house and its balloon friends while you're away.
With respectful apologies to those who detest both alliteration and terrible puns, Higher! is smooth soothing sailing all the way.