Puddle Ferry

Hold the button and a white call duck in a skipper’s cap flaps up off the dock; let go and it sinks back toward the water. Flying by hand is the whole fun of Puddle Ferry. A rider waves from a dock with an arrow over it, a speech bubble says which numbered dock they want, and you carry them there and set down softly. Watch the ring under the duck: solid green means gentle, doubled red means you’re coming in far too fast. Touch the pond or hit something hard and you get a dunking, which costs a feather. The tip shrinks while a rider waits, so a quick, tidy flight pays best.

Your passengers are yellow and brown ducklings, a mallard hen, a goose and a frog, and the quacks, peeps and honks are recordings of our own birds. Nobody gets hurt; a crash just leaves one wet, grumpy duck. Classic is a shift through thirteen hand-built ponds and barns, with gusts of wind, drifting logs, icy docks and a sliding barn door, then fresh levels that keep getting harder until your feathers run out. There’s also one route a day that every player flies. Anybody with a taste for a little finger skill will get on with it, and Steady wings in the menu makes the first flights kinder. It costs nothing and runs right here in the browser, with a keyboard or a gamepad if you like. For the finer points, read how to play Puddle Ferry.