Game

It is the night of a festival and the lanterns have gone dark. Kiru stands on a rooftop with 30 spirit flames to light them with. You drag up to throw: the longer the drag, the farther the flame flies, and it only catches if it drops into the top of a lantern. Every lantern you light bursts into fireworks on the beat, and lighting every lantern on a rope sends the whole rope up into the sky. Light several in a row and the band joins in, from a koto and a soft drum up to the full festival band. When the flames run out there is a finale of fireworks, and the night’s score is tallied on a paper slip. The game plays all of its own music while you play: koto, shamisen, taiko drums and a bamboo flute, with no recordings to download. It plays on a phone held either way up and on a computer, with touch, a mouse, the keyboard or a game controller. It remembers your best score, and it is one file.