Just play
Pick a game and press Play. There’s nothing to install and no new account to make. Games marked Guests welcome work without signing in at all.
Your account, your saves
When you sign in, you use your Atmosphere account: the same one you use for Bluesky, or one from Northsky, Blacksky, Eurosky, or your own server.
Your scores, streaks, and saves are written to your account’s repository, not kept in a database of ours. That means:
- They’re yours. If you move your account to another host, your game history moves with it.
- They’re open. Other apps can read them, so a profile, a leaderboard, or another game can build on what you’ve played.
- They’re signed. Cavu Games signs each result, so anyone can check a score really came from the game.
Games only write what they say
Every game lists, in plain language, what it can save to your account. You’ll see the list on the game’s page before you play. Cavu Games holds the sign-in and checks every write against that list; the games themselves never see your password or your account’s keys.
You can sign out here at any time, or revoke Cavu Games’ access from your account host’s settings.
Showing what you’re playing
If you like, your account can say which game you’re in right now, so friends and apps like atmosphere.games can see it. It’s off until you turn it on, and the status ends when you stop playing.
For game makers
Cavu games are written in Lua. The same code runs on the game server, where it keeps the rules honest, and in your browser, where it draws the game and keeps it responsive. Each game brings its own look: art, type, and colour are all its own.
A game is listed from its developer’s own account (a games.atmosphere.define record), and you can try a game that’s still running on your own computer before it’s published.
The name
CAVU is pilots’ shorthand for “ceiling and visibility unlimited”: clear blue skies, a wide open atmosphere, a great day to fly. The motto, Ludos Liberi (“free games”), is about who controls distribution: no publisher or store stands between a game and its players. Games live on their developers’ own servers and are played in our open-source client.