About this game

You fly the goose at the front of a V of five. Bank left and right to turn, tilt up to climb and down to dive. Hold Flap to gain speed and height. Flapping uses energy; gliding doesn't, but the flock slowly sinks.

Streams of white dashes in the air are wind. Fly into one and it carries the flock along fast and gives back energy. Specks rising in a column show warm air going up, and circling in it lifts you. Glide down slowly onto any lake to rest. Come in too fast and the geese skim over the water instead.

The goose at the front does the most work and tires. Press Swap to send it to the back and bring a fresh goose forward. Over the plateau and the mountains a golden eagle circles ahead and then dives at the V. Dive too, drop down near the ground or fly into a cloud. If it catches you, a goose is knocked out of the V and you have to go back for it.

On the Gobi a dust storm comes up behind the flock. Flap and ride the wind to keep ahead of it, or the geese get caught in the dust until it blows past. Hold Q to look back and watch it come.

Each leg has two animals or places to spot, such as wild horses on the steppe, a snow leopard near the pass and one-horned rhinos in Assam. Fly low and close to one and its page, with a fact, goes into the journal on the menu. Each leg also gives up to three feathers: one for reaching the lake, one for bringing every lost goose, and one for never touching the ground.

A clock times each leg. Fly it again and a golden V flies your best time beside you, so you can see whether you are ahead or behind.

Each leg ends at a lake with other geese already on it. Land there and a card gives two short facts about the real migration: why the geese fly in a V, how they breathe at 5,000 metres, and when they cross the mountains.

The five legs are the Mongolian steppe in the morning, the Gobi Desert in the afternoon, the Tibetan Plateau in the evening, the Himalaya before dawn and the wetlands of Assam at sunset. Lost geese circle on their own along the way. Fly close and they join the V, and each one makes flapping a little easier for the rest.

Good for

• A unit on animal migration or adaptations
• Geography of Asia: the route from Mongolia to India
• A calm reward at the end of the week