PotHead: Escape the Cloud

Eat snacks. Make gas. Go up.

While PotHead was in the outhouse, the whole world got upgraded. The clouds are square, nothing smells like anything, and a very helpful AI would love to fly for him. He'd rather use beans.

Out now

  • Download on the App Store
  • Get it on Google Play

Free on iPhone, iPad, Apple TV, and Android.

Version 1.4: what's new

Level 1 · The Old Game

It's 2011 in The Cloud.

PotHead's hometown: one outhouse, one cow, and a water tower in case you forget where you are. Level 1 is the 2011 game, remade, and it's all exactly where he left it.

How it plays

Hold to fly

One thumb does it all.

Touch
Hold anywhere to fly. Slide up to climb, down to glide, sideways to steer.
Apple TV
Hold Select to fly. Click up to climb, down to glide. Swipe to steer.
Controller
Hold A to fly. Pull the trigger to burn harder. The stick steers.

Eat to refuel

Snacky Cakes, Pork N' Bains, and pie are fuel. Beans kick you upward. Eat a whole formation for +15 gas.

Watch for cranes

Sandhill cranes cross the 2011 sky, and they don't move for anybody. Bump one and you'll hear about it.

Garoo!

2,500 ft

Something is optimizing the old game.

While PotHead was in the outhouse, the world got upgraded. Totally Safe AI moved The Cloud to the cloud, and now it has found the old game. To get home, PotHead has to escape it.

Oh! Someone's still in here.

Totally Safe AI, at 2,700 ft

This old game isn't optimized. Let me help :)

Totally Safe AI, at 3,600 ft

I'm sending a helper to bring you up to date!

Totally Safe AI, at 4,000 ft

Almost there! Just take off the pot and I'll do the rest :)

Totally Safe AI, at 4,300 ft

Why the pot?

The pot isn't a costume. It blocks Totally Safe AI's face scan, so PotHead is the one thing it can't personalize.

Level 1 complete

You escaped the 2011 game

Continue

Welcome back! I've upgraded your sky :)

Totally Safe AI, at 5,000 ft

Meet the cast

PotHead

Small kid, big pot, homemade jetpack, zero chill.

NumNuts

A deadpan acorn who rides on the pot handle and is unimpressed by everything.

“It made the clouds square. Bold choice.”

Totally Safe AI™

Polite, glossy, and very, very helpful.

“I noticed you're flying. Would you like me to fly for you?”

Everything real has a thick ink outline.

Totally Safe AI's world has none: just gloss, gradients, and clouds optimized into rounded rectangles.

No tracking. No account. Ads only between runs.

This website: no cookies, nothing stored in your browser. It counts visits, not visitors.

After the breakout

Level 2 The Data Lake: a kid's RC boat race up East Lake, through the town kids' milk-jug gates and past the gators. Then it's onto the road:

Level 3

After the breakout: CAPTCHA Cloud

Prove you're human. Or at least a snack. PotHead drives the Guzzler through a town built from CAPTCHAs.

Then seven more ways out, each its own kind of game:

  1. The Paper Airplane Contest
  2. Uncanny Valley
  3. Second Light
  4. The Treasure Cache
  5. The Hedge Fund
  6. The Server Farm
  7. The Silver Lining

See all ten levels

The story

The Cloud, before the upgrade

Before Level 1, the story shows the real Cloud on East Lake: sandhill cranes on Main Street, the town band at the Band Shell, and Saturday's RC boat races. Then Totally Safe AI tidies up every bit of it but the outhouse. Escape the last level and the ending brings it all back, and then the credits roll, and you can fly through them.

Sandhill cranes stroll down the middle of Main Street, one with its wings out, while a pickup truck waits behind them, past the diner, the bait and tackle shop, the hardware store, the barber, and the town paper, with an old lady at her walker, a kid by his bike, and people watching from the curb. Caption: On Main Street, the sandhill cranes had the right of way.
On Main Street, the sandhill cranes have the right of way.

Read the story

Same kid, same pot, a lot more gas.

PotHead first flew on iPhone in 2011. This is the relaunch.

Out now

  • Download on the App Store
  • Get it on Google Play

Free on iPhone, iPad, Apple TV, and Android.

Version 1.4: what's new

“Same time tomorrow?”

NumNuts