Stillwater

Stillwater: a cozy stone-skipping game

Find a flat stone, tilt it just right, and send it dancing across a quiet autumn lake.

Stillwater is a calm, hand-crafted little game about one of the oldest pleasures there is: skipping stones. You wander an Alaskan forest lake at golden morning light, crunch across the gravel beach, and hunt for the perfect skipper. Then you step to the water's edge and see how far you can make it hop.

Easy to pick up, deep to master

Every throw comes down to a few things real stone-skippers swear by:

The stone. Flat and thin as a cookie skips best. Chunky stones dig in and sink. Every stone on the beach is different, and each one gets a stat card showing its diameter, thickness, weight and flatness.
The tilt. Angle the front edge up about 20°. Too flat and it digs in; too steep and it drags.
The throw. Keep it low and shallow. Steep lobs just go "plop".
The power. The meter charges and then swings back down. Release inside the bright sweet spot for a bonus.
The spin. While you charge, your arm pumps back and forth. Let go just as the ring flashes for a big flick of spin that keeps the stone steady.

Nail all five and watch it skim twenty-plus times, ending in a fast "pitty-pat" run before it slips under.

Real skipping physics

Under the cozy look is a proper physics model, based on published research on how skipping stones actually work. The stone is simulated as a spinning, tilted disc: water pushes back on the part that touches the surface, spin keeps it stable like a top, and speed bleeds away with every kiss of the water. Good technique is rewarded the way it would be at a real lake, so practice genuinely makes you better.

Three ways to play

Training: Old Amos, a fisherman who has skipped stones on this lake for forty years, walks you through the basics in five friendly steps, with a dotted guide showing your throw's first arc.
Challenges: seven goals that unlock one after another, including Ten Hops, reaching the Red Buoy, Ring Toss, Fifteen, Lily Pad Hops, a gusty Windy Morning, and Glass Water, where the lake is dead calm and you go for 20 skips.
Free Play: no targets, just the lake. Chase your personal bests for skips, distance and score.

Scores count your skips, distance and "perfect" contacts, where the stone hits the water at almost exactly the ideal angle. String together good throws for a streak multiplier. Your bests, challenge progress and settings are saved automatically.

A little world to sink into

A low-poly autumn valley: orange and gold aspens, dark pines, misty mountains, and a lake that mirrors it all.
Hand-drawn ink outlines and a warm, painterly finish.
Leaves drifting down and landing on the water.
Every skip leaves ripples and splashes, and slow motion kicks in on the first touch.
Footprints in the gravel and splashes when you wade into the shallows.
An old dock and a canoe pulled up on the shore.
Fully procedural sound: wind in the trees, lapping water, footsteps and the satisfying "plink" of every skip.

Controls (keyboard & mouse, gamepad supported)

WASD to move (Shift to run), mouse to look
E to pick up or swap a stone
Hold right mouse to aim
Scroll wheel or Q/E to tilt the stone
Hold left mouse to charge, release to throw
Esc to pause

On a gamepad: left stick to move, right stick to look, A to pick up, LT to aim, LB/RB to tilt, and hold RT to charge.

Plays right in your browser

No download, no install. Stillwater runs in modern desktop browsers using WebGPU, and falls back to WebGL2 automatically. Graphics quality presets (Low / Medium / High) help it run smoothly on a wide range of machines.

Grab a flat one. The lake is waiting.