Desert

In desert stages the floor isn't flat. Sand dunes, rocks and cacti shape the ball's path. Gravity is the same as on Earth, but the ground changes everything. There are 21 desert stages: three in Level 1 and two in every Level after that.

Sand dunes

Dunes are smooth bumps on the floor: both ends meet the ground smoothly and the crest is in the middle. Sand behaves differently from normal ground:

• Barely bounces: a ball dropping onto sand hardly hops at all.
• Slows the ball: sand has about three times the friction of normal ground. A ball rolling through sand loses speed quickly.
• Launches a fast ball: a ball crossing a crest at speed leaves the ground behind it and flies. At the right speed, a dune is a free ramp.

You can't draw inside a dune or within 5 centimetres of its surface. If you want your own ramp on top of a dune, it has to sit a little above it.

Rocks

Rocks on the ground are solid; the ball bounces off them like the floor. Their sloped faces can lift the ball, like Triangles. You can't draw within 5 centimetres of a rock.

Cacti

Cacti are the desert's spikes. Touch the trunk or an arm and the ball pops, the stage restarts and your drawings are erased. Some cacti have one or two arms that stick out sideways and turn upward, widening the area the cactus covers. A cactus can stand on the floor or on top of a dune. Every tactic for spikes applies: see Spikes.

Planning shots in the desert

1. Avoid rolling through sand. Paths where the ball rolls through sand for a long way need power and are hard to predict. Get the ball over the sand through the air when you can.
2. Try the dune as a ramp. If there's a dune in front of the ball, shoot at a few different powers without drawing anything to see how it flies off the crest. Then draw a small correction if needed.
3. Deal with cacti first. On a cactus stage one mistake wipes your drawing, so first find a path that clears the cacti safely.

More in this section

• SpaceSix planets, six different gravities. Meteors and black holes.
• PolarIce floor, igloos, ice holes and snowstorms. The ball just won't stop.
• ForestTrees block the way, mushrooms bounce, mud swallows.