Game guide
Pocket Switzerland is played at your own pace. You fly a hot-air balloon over a paper Switzerland, land wherever you like, and the flight log keeps track of everything you discover.
This guide covers what the game shows you. What it keeps hidden — where the treasures are, the answers to the riddles, how the quests end — you will discover in flight.
Three rules that never change
- Nothing is lost: a stamp, treasure, patch or level you have earned stays yours.
- Nothing punishes you: no streak to break, no level that goes back down.
- Nothing rushes you: distance and flight time are counted just for fun; they earn you nothing.
The towns, on foot
Over a town, you can also put your feet on the ground. Bern leads the way: it is the first town you explore on foot.
Getting in
Open the town’s page in the flight log, then choose “Enter the town”. “Back to the map” takes you back to the balloon whenever you like. A town counts as discovered the moment you enter it, even if your balloon was far away.
Walking, jumping, skating
| Key | What it does |
|---|---|
| Arrows, WASD or ZQSD | stroll |
| Shift | walk slowly |
| Space | jump; once more in the air: double jump |
| E | step onto the skateboard (or walk onto it), or step off |
| F, or a click | open a chest or a box, read a sheet, talk to a resident, open a stall |
On the skateboard, ↑ pushes, ↓ brakes, ← and → turn, and Space does an ollie. Esc or E gets you off: the board stays where it is, and E brings it back to you from anywhere.
In the air, ← and → spin Clotilde and her board: a full turn fits in one ollie. On the skateboard, press ↓ in the air after an ollie for a kickflip.
Clotilde opens a chest only within arm’s reach and on foot, never just by passing, in the air or on the skateboard. When an action is possible, the hint on screen tells you the key.
What you find
Chests, golden chests, wooden boxes and sheets are scattered through the town; some hold surprises. What you find goes into the backpack, which has three tabs: “Unique objects”, “Clothes” and “Gear”. A “Secrets” page keeps what you noticed by looking closely, and never says what is missing.
The market and the pives
The market’s currency is the pive, the pine cone. You find them in chests, in baskets at the foot of fir trees on the map, and by reselling what you bought.
Six stalls line the Grand-rue: accessories, skateboards, snowboards, groceries, tools and books. Walk up to a stall as you would to a chest. In its window, “Buy” lets you tick several items and pay for them all at once, and “Sell” takes back what you bought at half price.
Gear is unique: a hat, a scarf, a skateboard or wheels can be bought only once. “Put it on Clotilde” makes her wear the piece, from the stall or from the backpack. It gives no advantage: it shows, that is all. In “Schuss! with Clotilde”, the hat, the scarf, the mask and the snowboard are worn too.
The residents
In the lanes, marmots have a story to tell. Talk to them as you would open a chest: within reach, with F or a click. The dialogue moves on line by line with “Continue”.
Some have a request. What they ask for is somewhere out there, and a marmot forgets nothing: leave the conversation before the end and it will play again in full. Bringing the object back earns you experience, and it stays in the backpack, greyed out.
Day, evening, night
The town changes its light: day, dawn or dusk, night. On a large screen, the moment selector sits under the buttons on the right. Look at the town at every moment: not everything is the same.
What Bern holds
A clock, a cathedral, gardens, a river. Bern has its riddles, its secrets and its encounters, to find in whatever order you like, without pressure. The places and what is real behind them are on the “Discovering and collecting” page; the answers, if you need them, are in the walkthrough.