Let's Go Fly a House!

Up through the atmosphere, up where the air is clear! Oh, let's go... fly a house!

Higher! is one of the those games that you'll just start playing to see what it's like and when you next look up your clock appears to have jumped an hour or two.

Clearly inspired by Pixar's Up (which I completely failed to see -.-), this little flash game developed by the Russian calling himself Flashist (his website is in Russian - anyone out there care to clarify if he's a student or what?) managed to scarf a clear two hours of my afternoon before I realised there was no end game. Still, it's quite relaxing with the right music and you quickly achieve a zen-like state.

The mechanics are simple - use the mouse to attach balloons to your house, making it fly higher. Drag floating mines into other mines to destroy them to earn coins before they destroy your balloons and send you plummeting to the earth. Maybe use the cursor keys or WASD to manoeuvre your domicile out of danger, but I found it easiest to park the house at the far side and bottom of the screen.

The gameplay and sound effects really suit the OST to Pan's Labyrinth, I find. I don't expect many people reading this to have that album ready to hand, but if you do give it a try. Or recommend your own choices in the comments thread.