Starlight Launch

What you do

Starlight Launch is a cozy code-breaking race on a festival night. Fireflies drift across a lantern-lit meadow, each glowing with a digit, and three catches make a guess at the 3-digit lock on your rocket. Each digit comes back green if it is in the right spot, amber if it is in the code somewhere else, and gray if it is not in the code at all. Gray digits fade from the meadow and green digits stay in their slots, so every guess narrows the search without any note taking. Across the meadow, Pip the fox cracks its own locks at the same time. Open all three of yours first and your rocket lights up the sky. A festival night is three rounds, and each round you win brings a helper that stays with you.

• A code-breaking race: catch digit fireflies to open three 3-digit locks before Pip the fox opens its own.
• Clear clues with symbols as well as colors: green for the right spot, amber for the wrong spot and gray for not in the code.
• Gray digits fade from the meadow and green digits stay in their slots, so there is nothing to write down.
• A festival night of three rounds against Easy, Normal and Hard Pip, with repeated digits in the last round.
• Win a round to adopt an Owl, Glowworm, Frog or Moth helper that works on its own, up to three of each.
• Every digit plays its own chime, and your rocket bursts in the firework color you choose.

How to play

1. Tap a firefly to catch its digit. Digits fill your three slots from left to right, and the race starts with your first catch.
2. When the third digit lands, the lock reads your guess. Green means the right digit in the right spot, amber means the digit is in the code in another spot, and gray means it is not in the code.
3. Gray digits fade out and cannot be caught, and green digits stay in their slots for your next guess. Tap a caught digit to release it before the third one lands.
4. Open all three locks before Pip the fox opens its three. Pip guesses on a timer, and the strip at the top shows its open locks and its last clues.
5. Win a round to pick a helper. A night has three rounds: Pip gets quicker each round, and in round three a digit can appear more than once.

Controls

• Touch or mouse: tap a firefly to catch it, and tap a filled slot to release its digit.
• Keyboard: press 0 to 9 to catch a firefly showing that digit, and Backspace to release the last digit. Tab reaches the slots and the card buttons.
• Shared toolbar: pause, restart, sound, help and fullscreen. Pausing stops Pip too.

Tips worth knowing

• Open with three digits you have not tried. Even three grays dim three digits for the rest of that lock.
• An amber digit belongs in a different slot. Move it on your next guess instead of dropping it.
• Slots fill from the left, so look for the digit your leftmost empty slot needs first.
• If the digit you need is missing, wait a moment: every digit that could still be in your code drifts back within four seconds.
• Listen to the chimes. Each digit has its own note, so a code starts to sound familiar.
• Owls pay off when a lock takes many guesses, Moths calm a busy meadow, and Frogs forgive near misses.

Accessibility

• Clues use a symbol as well as a color: a check for the right spot, a dot for the wrong spot and a cross for not in the code.
• Keyboard play: number keys catch a visible firefly with that digit, and Backspace releases the last digit.
• Guesses, clues, open locks and Pip's progress are announced to screen readers, and the slots and cards are real buttons.
• This is a timed race: fireflies move and Pip keeps guessing. Pause at any time from the toolbar, and losing a round still moves the night on.
• Reduced motion stills the stars and lanterns, trims the fireworks and removes the camera tilt. Fireflies still drift, because catching them is the game. Sound is never required.