Make-believe: boats, kites and stars

Rill the Otter never stopped playing pretend. After the Sky Rower, he remembers more of the games he played as a pup, one at a time, and you build them for real. Each one starts from Rill talking to you, and each ends in a proud moment: for about half a minute the controls rest and the camera shows you what you made, then Rill walks over and says a few words from the heart.

The Leaf-Boat Regatta

Remember racing paper boats down the gutter after the rain? Rill does.

1. Fold five leaf boats. Make them by hand, no workbench needed: 5 big leaves, 5 sticks and 2 fiber make five Leaf Boats at once.
2. Race them down the river. Hold a boat and use it on a flowing river to set it on the water. It drifts away with the current, and you follow it along the bank. Otto the Otter keeps score: a boat that floats 40 m downstream reaches the finish, and so does one that drifts into a deep, still pool after at least 15 m. Three boats must finish.

• Still water won't do: find a river that is moving. Set your boats near the middle, where the current is fastest.
• Not every boat makes it. Some run aground on the bank. That's all right: fold another and try again.
• You can have 6 boats racing at once. When a boat stops, E picks it back up to race again.

Kite Day

Mira's goats have wandered into the next valley and can't find their way home. Rill has an idea: a kite, high enough for them to see and follow.

1. Talk to Mira in the village.
2. Build a kite at a Workbench: 3 cloth, 2 bamboo, 2 rope and 2 fiber make a Diamond Kite.
3. Climb the windiest hilltop with the kite in your hand: somewhere high and open, at least 6 m above the land around it.
4. Keep it aloft for a whole minute.

How to fly it:

• Launch: hold the kite and use it. It needs wind. Stand with the wind at your back, so the kite goes up in front of you. On low ground, run into the wind as you launch.
• The wind gauge: while you hold the kite, a small gauge shows which way the wind blows and how strong it is. The wind turns slowly through the day, blows harder in rough weather, and blows much harder on high ground.
• Keep it high: the kite climbs while you face it with the wind behind you, and sinks when you turn away. It counts as aloft from 12 m up; the line lets it climb to 26 m.
• Gusts: now and then a gust pulls the kite down. Use the kite again to tug the line and lift it back up.
• A whole minute aloft in one flight finishes the quest. If the kite comes down, launch it again. It lands if you put it away.

The Stargazer's Moon Base

A tube for a telescope, a pot for a helmet, and the garden was the Moon.

1. Build a telescope at a Workbench: 3 bamboo, 2 glass, 1 copper ingot and 1 rope make a Bamboo Telescope.
2. Set up the moon base. Build a Moon-Base Camp at a workbench (4 cloth, 6 sticks, 2 rope, 1 copper ingot and 1 glass), hold it and use it on flat, open ground. Crouch and E packs it back up.
3. Chart three star patterns. On a night with no rain, storm or fog, stand within 15 m of a moon base and look through the telescope: use it, or press E at the camp. Drag the mouse (or the right stick) to look around; the wheel (or the shoulder buttons) zooms. Find a pattern and hold it in the middle circle for a moment. Each one you find goes on the village star chart, with a lesson about it.
4. Spot the Moonwing Pegasus. Once you have charted three patterns, keep watching near the Moon. Now and then the Moonwing Pegasus flies past. Catch it in the circle.

There are five patterns in the sky to find: the Big Dipper, Cassiopeia, Orion, the Seven Sisters and the Southern Cross. They are real star patterns, and each lesson tells you something true about it.