Discovering and collecting

The flight log keeps the list of everything there is to find, and the backpack holds what you have earned.

The destinations

Towns, summits, lakes and glaciers: a destination is discovered when you land there, fly over it, or open its page from its label. Each has its own page in the flight log, with an illustration and a description.

Sites and stamps

Around the towns, a selection of Switzerland Tourism’s sites awaits you in the flight log: a site is discovered when you open its card. When every site of a destination is discovered, its stamp joins your stamp book.

The treasures

There are three kinds. Earning a stamp makes a chest appear near its town, and the chest’s clue helps you find it. Riddles, known from the start by their clue and a zone on the map, are solved with a gesture. And master treasures unlock when you meet their condition, then are searched for like a riddle; some are surprises.

The nature guide

In flight, paper pennants pop up in the landscape: nature hides there. Click a pennant, or fly right past it close to the ground, to meet a species; fauna and flora change with altitude and with the way the slope faces. The nature guide, in the backpack, sorts them by zone.

The tickets

Every transport on the map has its ticket. To take it, set the basket down on one of its vehicles: as soon as it rests there, the ticket is yours. In the backpack, the “Travel book” group of the Treasures section shows your punched tickets and, for the missing ones, the place to take them. Each transport also has its own page on this site, in the “Transport” section.

The Swiss dictionary

Each town hides an expression from its region. It joins the backpack’s Swiss dictionary when you discover the town or one of its sites. Each expression also has its own page on this site, in the “Swiss dictionary” section.

Bern, on foot

Bern is the first town of the game you explore on foot, from its page in the flight log. The game simplifies the places without trying to make a street plan. Here is what is real behind them. The Old City of Bern is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and the thread of the walk is time.

The Zytglogge

The Zytglogge is a medieval tower, built in the early 13th century, with an astronomical clock from the 15th century. Just under four minutes before every full hour, a rooster crows, a jester rings two bells, a procession of armed bears comes out of the tower and goes back in, then a gilded figure strikes the great bell, cast in 1405.

In the game, the clock tower has a riddle of its own.

The Minster and the Münsterplatz

Bern Minster is a Gothic church whose construction began in 1421; its 100.6 m tower was only completed in 1893. Above the main portal, a group of late Gothic sculptures shows the Last Judgement, with the wise and foolish virgins of the parable in the Gospel.

In the game, the Münsterplatz is the square of that portal, and ten lamps wait there for someone.

The Münsterplattform

The Münsterplattform is a rectangular terrace above the Aar. It was a cemetery until 1531, then a park. Since 1897, a lift, the Mattelift, has linked it to the Matte.

In the game, the zipline to the Matte starts from the terrace.

The Matte and Mattenenglisch

The Matte is the district on the bank of the Aar, below the old town. It is recorded around 1327; it was where boatmen and rafters landed, and where fishermen and carters also worked.

Mattenenglisch is a special dialect of the Matte, with a secret language on top: you move the first syllable of a word to the end, put an i at the start and replace the last vowel with an e, so that Bärn becomes Irnbe. Where “-englisch” comes from is disputed.

In the game, a boatman waits for you on the bank of the Aar.

The Aar

The Aar is a river 288 km long, a tributary of the Rhine. Bern’s old town stands on a peninsula in one of its loops.

In the game, you paddle down the Aar.

The Grand-rue

The axis of the old town is made of the Kramgasse, about 330 m long, and its extension, the Gerechtigkeitsgasse. The Kramgasse is lined with stone arcades on both sides. Three fountains stand along it: the Kreuzgassbrunnen, the Simsonbrunnen and the Zähringerbrunnen.

In the game, the Grand-rue is the one with the market.

Einstein’s house

At Kramgasse 49, the Einsteinhaus recalls that Albert Einstein rented a flat there from 1903 to 1905, when he worked at the Swiss patent office. He lived there with his first wife, Mileva Marić. Today it is a museum.

In the game, a resident alludes to it, under her breath.

The BärenPark

The bear is the heraldic animal of the city and the canton of Bern. The BärenPark, opened in 2009, replaces the old Bärengraben for the brown bears. It lies on the other bank of the Aar, facing the old town.

The Nydegg Bridge

The Nydeggbrücke crosses the Aar east of the old town, very close to the Bärengraben. It is 190 m long.