How to play Glowtide

Glowtide is a one-thumb trick-shot game above a lantern festival. You bank paper lanterns off festival posts, strike the Windkite as it crosses the lane, pair matching colours to light the next tier, and keep the canopy above the festival rope. This guide covers aiming, the routes, powers, the Festival Kit and the Daily Tide.

The eight tiers, in order

Tangerine → Jade → Magenta → Pearl Gold → Cobalt → Coral → Violet → Festival Crownlight

The ranked Daily Tide moves to these festival-post lanes and the early Windkite on 31 October. Every other run already plays this way.

• 01
  Use the posts, don't fight them.The aim line shows every bank before you release. A post is often the only way to reach the far side of the canopy, so read the angle off it instead of aiming straight up into the crowd.
• 02
  Land clean shots.A launched lantern that reaches its match within one second, while still moving fast, scores a clean pair worth 1.6× the points. Pairs from a pile-up never count as clean, so fire at a nearby match, banking if you have to.
• 03
  Chain pairs quickly.Pairs that follow each other closely build a chain, and each link adds to the multiplier. A chain of four starts Tide Rush: six seconds of double points, Windkite strikes included. Set up two or three matches side by side, then trigger them in a row.
• 04
  Use SAVE to fix bad draws.If the lantern in the launcher has nowhere useful to go, store it and take the next one. A saved lantern that matches a big tier later is worth waiting for.
• 05
  Read the Windkite.The Windkite crosses the lane in four patterns: glide, wave, swoop and crosswind, and it peeks in from the edge before each pass. Watch its path before you launch, and use the sideways kick of a strike to reach a match.
• 06
  Play to the route.Open Sky Festival is the classic lane of posts and wind. On Moonlit Promenade a side current reverses every few seconds, and pairs made against it score 1.5×. On Golden Bazaar warm updrafts lift the canopy on a cycle, and pairs made during one score 1.5×.

The Official Daily Tide is 50 launches with the same seed, route and three-special Festival Kit for every player. From 31 October it uses the festival-post lanes and early Windkite described above; until then it keeps the previous Daily rules, so players on every version are ranked on the same board. You get one ranked run a day, and it is identical for free and Pro players. The route rotates daily across all three sky routes, including the two Pro routes, and free players play them on the Daily. A new Daily Tide starts at 00:00 UTC, with a daily mission to aim for.

The Official Daily advances your streak. Every third consecutive day awards a Festival Kit special, and every fifth awards a Tide Charm, which can protect your Festival Canopy from a missed day. Pro keeps your Tide Charms topped up to four.

Free includes the Official Daily Tide and its leaderboard, Open Sky Festival, every lantern tier, the Tidelight Atlas, achievements, three casual runs a day and storage for 9 of each special. There are no ads.

Pro adds unlimited casual runs, Glow Rush, Crownlight Quest and Lamplight, the Moonlit Promenade and Golden Bazaar routes, the Pro Open Daily, three current styles, prestige ranks, storage for 99 of each special, and Tide Charms topped up to four. Unlock Glowtide once, or choose a StackForge Play Pass, which covers Pro across StackForge games. Nothing you buy changes the Official Daily.