Splash Landing

Landing is the hard part, as any duck could tell you. Here you fly a mallard drake in toward a little pond and try to set him down on open water, feet first, softly enough that he skids to a stop near the wooden dock instead of cartwheeling or flopping on his belly. Hold Flap to climb and push the way you lean, let go to glide, and steer against the wind, which you read from the reeds, the wind sock and the ripples. A ring under him turns green when touching down right then would go well. Points come for a gentle touchdown, for hitting the gold lane, for stopping close to the dock, for stamina you didn’t burn, and for any fish you snap up as they leap.

Each day brings three fresh ponds, the same for everyone, picked from six kinds: a calm morning, a gusty afternoon, a lily pond, a narrow canal, an icy winter edge, and an evening pond where a mixed little flock of call ducks, mallards and ducklings has already settled, so you mustn’t land on anybody. Classic carries on pond after pond, windier each time, until you run out of feathers. It’s a calm, fiddly sort of game for anyone who likes getting the feel of something just right, and the quacks come from our own mallards and call ducks. We build it on Long Island, and you can fly it here at no cost. To learn the knack, read how to play Splash Landing.