I've been playing video games since the tender age of four. As a result, most of my articles are related to video games.

My very own Guardian Dragon, progenitor of my clan. What is this all about? Well, read on and learn what makes progenitors unique! Flight Rising

Introduction to Flight Rising

Flight Rising is a dragon-breeding simulation game with light RPG elements that officially launched on June 8th, 2013. However, Kickstarter backers got headstart access on July 5th as one of the many rewards for donating to the project beforehand. I like to back games that intrigue me or bring interesting concepts to the video game scene, and Flight Rising delivers in that respect. If you've ever wanted to have a Dragon Cave-esque game with more interaction, I wholeheartedly recommend Flight Rising.

With that little bit of exposition, I'm going to give some tips and tricks you can use to leverage your new dragon clan!

Choose Your Flight!

The first order of business on creating your account at Flight Rising is choosing your elemental Flight. Your choice of Flight is permanent and cannot be changed, so be careful! There are a total of eleven flights in Flight Rising, and your choice of flight will affect a few things:

Subforums: Each flight has their own private subforum in the Flight Rising forums. So, if you decide to join the Fire Flight, for example, you'll gain access to the Fire Flight's private subforum. I'm sure lots of plotting and scheming will take place.

Each flight has their own private subforum in the Flight Rising forums. So, if you decide to join the Fire Flight, for example, you'll gain access to the Fire Flight's private subforum. I'm sure lots of plotting and scheming will take place. Debuffs: Each element has a special debuff that is applied when using certain abilities from said element while battling in the Coliseum. For example, Water-based abilities may Slow down your target.

Each element has a special debuff that is applied when using certain abilities from said element while battling in the Coliseum. For example, Water-based abilities may Slow down your target. Hatchlings: Hatchlings born from your nest will share your flight's element, regardless of the actual element of the parents. A Shadow and a Plague mating in a Fire nest will spawn Fire hatchlings.

Hatchlings born from your nest will share your flight's element, regardless of the actual element of the parents. A Shadow and a Plague mating in a Fire nest will spawn Fire hatchlings. Eye Color: Lastly, and for those people who are into making the most attractive specimens in the game, the color of a dragon's eyes is determined by their element. In the case of Water, this would be a dark blue.

Fiya, the random dragon I got in "Flight Rising" and the female progenitor of my clan. Flight Rising

All About Your Starter Dragon

The second order of business is creating your starter dragon, which is done after you create your account for Flight Rising. There are four starter breeds to choose from, and you can modify your starter dragon's colors, breed, and gender as you see fit. This is the only time in the entire game that you will have this much freedom in modifying a dragon, so take your time!

Here's a small summary of the four starter breeds:

Guardian: My starter dragon is a Guardian. Guardians are the heaviest type of dragon and have a small stat preference towards defense, as their name would suggest. Guardians are happy eating any of the game's four types of food.

My starter dragon is a Guardian. Guardians are the heaviest type of dragon and have a small stat preference towards defense, as their name would suggest. Guardians are happy eating any of the game's four types of food. Fae: On the opposite end of the spectrum, we have Fae dragons as the smallest type of dragon. They have a small stat preference towards Intellect. Faes eat Insect type food.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, we have Fae dragons as the smallest type of dragon. They have a small stat preference towards Intellect. Faes eat Insect type food. Tundra: Tundra dragons aren't the sharpest tools in the shed, but they are friendly and loyal. Tundras eat Plant type food.

Tundra dragons aren't the sharpest tools in the shed, but they are friendly and loyal. Tundras eat Plant type food. Mirror: Mirror dragons are perhaps the most alien looking of the starter dragons. Mirrors eat both Meat and Seafood types of food.

While I mentioned stat preferences for Guardians and Faes, it is important to note that the actual difference in stats is extremely minimal. If inclined, you could make a Fae with Guardian-like stats and vice versa. So, pick whichever breed you most like. Once you create your starter dragon, you will be notified of another dragon joining your nest. This dragon is completely randomized (except for their gender, which will be the opposite of your starter dragon's gender) by the game and will be your progenitor's mate.

After that, the tutorial will nudge you to the Nesting Grounds to pair up your two dragons.

Unique Aspects of Progenitors

But, before that, here is what make your progenitors unique:

Your progenitors may not be exalted (to exalt a dragon is to grant them leave from your clan to go serve directly under your flight's deity).

Likewise, your progenitors start as adults and may not be traded to other players.

Essentially, your progenitors are going to be a part of your dragon clan for the duration of your game time in Flight Rising.

This is Oberon, an Imperial hatchling that I created by using a KS-exclusive breed-changing item. Flight Rising

Some Ways to Trade Dragons and Items

To trade dragons with another player, access the Crossroads option on the left side of the website and then type in the name of the player you want to trade a dragon to. More information below.

Alternately, you can gift treasure and/or gems (Flight Rising's virtual currency used to buy items from the microtransaction shop in the Marketplace) by way of a direct message to your player of choice.

Finally, you can use the auction house if you don't have a specific target for your dragon or items of choice. You can define a price in Treasure or in Gems.

A Little More on Trading

Here is the full process of how to perform a dragon trade with another player, given that I didn't know how to do so when I started either, and a few other new players have asked me how to trade as well. It's really simple, but not completely intuitive:

Go to the Crossroads subsection of the Shop at the left side of the screen.

Type in the name of whoever you want to start the trade with.

Then, decide what you want from the other person (treasure, gems, or a dragon) and then choose one of your dragons to trade.

Alternately, you can trade treasure or gems and your trading partner can trade you a dragon instead.

There you have it!

Breeding 101 in Flight Rising

Breeding is a pretty simple affair (at least in terms of player input; the variety in your progeny can get quite interesting, to say the least) in Flight Rising. Basically, you choose one eligible male and one eligible female, press the Breed button and the female lays a clutch of 1 to 5 eggs. You then have to incubate your eggs once a day until they're ready to hatch, at which time you click the Hatch button which will now be visible and voila! You now have between 1 and 5 new hatchlings with colors similar to their parents and the breed of one of their parents, chosen at random.

After the act of breeding, both parents suffer a breeding cooldown, during which they cannot mate. For starter dragons this cooldown is 15 days. Rarer breeds have higher cooldowns.

Now then, some tips and notes about breeding:

I recommend only using Boons of Fertility (allow a clutch of eggs to hatch instantly) if your clutch has at least 3 eggs. It stinks when your first clutch only has 1 egg, but it's better to wait patiently for the one egg to hatch normally than it is to speed it up since your progenitors are going to be on a 15-day breeding cooldown anyway.

In-breeding is not allowed in the game. Potential mates must be separated by at least five generations before they are allowed to mate. So, it's extremely important to trade hatchlings with other people to increase your gene pool and thus your ability to actually mate your dragons.

Remember that all of your hatchlings will share your element. Thus, if you're looking to increase your breeding pool and don't care much about your element pool, it doesn't matter what flight the hatchling comes from.

The chances of getting hatchlings from a certain breed are weighted based on their rarity. For example, if two dragons of the same rarity and different breeds mate, there will be a 50% chance of each breed manifesting itself. If one of the two breeds is rarer, the distribution will be weighted in favor of the more common breed. (This is why you'll notice that some people have two dragons of the same rare breed mating with each other since it guarantees hatchlings of said breed).

It takes 5 days for a hatchling to grow into an adult.

Feeding 101

All dragons have a stat called Energy, which holds a total of 50 points. As time passes and/or your dragons fight in the Coliseum, their Energy will drop. You'll want to feed them from the Dragon Lair menu to keep them topped up. As mentioned in the parentheses in the section to the left, you get a gathering turn bonus if you keep your clan's Energy up consistently for at least three days in a row!

I'm not sure how dragons that eat multiple types of food decide what they want to eat, but they don't consume much food, and you start with 50 units of each type of food, so this shouldn't be a problem for a while.

Gather Every Day!

Something that takes less than two minutes every day, but can get you many neat items and food is gathering. You get a total of ten gathering turns a day (+5 more if you keep your clan's energy level at 80% for more than three days in a row, but more on that in the next section) to gather food or dig/scavenge for items (or a combination of both). You'll want to make sure you have ample food stores to keep your dragon's energy up, but it's also a good idea to try to find items as well. Who knows what you could find?

Note that all gathered items and food are sent to your Hoard. To convert your food items into tangible food, go to the Food subsection of the Hoard, hit Select All, and then press Convert.

Treasure 101

You're going to need lots and lots of treasure to buy battle stones for your coliseum or to buy food, apparel, and other niceties for your clan. The easiest way to gain treasure is to play one of the various mini-games Flight Rising has available over at the Fairgrounds. As of the time of this writing there are only two, but more will be made available as content gets added to the game.

Another way to get some easy treasure is to sell your spare hatchlings to other players via the Auction House or your Hoard items through the same.

Coliseum Basics!

If you're like me, Flight Rising probably got you hooked thanks to its RPG aspects. Mainly, I'm talking about the Coliseum. In the Coliseum you can form a team of up to three dragons and battle enemies that are roughly level-appropriate.

Flight Rising's battle system isn't the most refined of all time, but you do have to consider that it's a simulation first and an RPG second. Even so, the battle system has some intricacies that I'd like to talk about.

Basically, each element counters certain other elements and is countered likewise by yet other elements in a complex rock-paper-scissors interaction. Given that I'm from the Water flight, I know that Water attacks deal double damage to Earth monsters/dragons but only half damage to Ice monsters/dragons. Thus, if you're seriously considering a career in the Coliseum, you'll want to preferably have dragons from three different elements so they can cover each others weaknesses and attack the enemy group's weaknesses in turn.

However, you won't have a third battler for a few days since you only start with two dragons. What I personally have done is make my Guardian tanky with high VIT/DEF/MND and my Fae the spell damage dealer with really high QCK and INT. Given her stats, she'll also work well as a healer once I get a third dragon into my coliseum party.

How the Battle System Works

So, how does the Flight Rising battle system work? Well:

Your draconic party faces off against monsters (Monster Battle) or an opposing draconic party (Rated Match). Turn order and frequency is determined by a dragon's Quickness stat.

Advanced attacks require the accumulation of Breath, which is gained by using your basic attack. Breath is consumed when an advanced attack is used. Guardian Dragons start with Scratch as their basic attack (called an Energy Stone in-game) and Shred as their advanced attack (called an Ability Stone in-game).

You can buy Battle Stones of a wide variety of abilities over at the Marketplace. You want to have a dragon that relies on buffing/debuffing? You can do it! Want to have a dedicated healer? Aid is there for you. The Flight Rising development team has stated that they will be adding new battle stones over time, so it'll be interesting to see how the new stones open up new strategies and/or obsolete previous strategies.

That's about it for the basics. Obviously, you'll get a variety of options as you unlock battle stone slots at certain levels, but it's pretty much pick up and play.

Stats? What Are Those?

Well, if you're even a casual player of RPG games, chances are that I'm not speaking in French to you right now. But, let us assume you are. Don't worry, Flight Rising's stat system is pretty clear cut.

First of all, we have the dragon's Energy level as mentioned previously. You want to keep this topped off if at all possible. Then, we have the dragon's combat stats, which are used solely at the Coliseum, and are as follows:

Strength: Determines the damage your dragon's physical attacks inflict.

Agility: Governs the dodge rate and critical hit chance of your dragon.

Defense: Reduces the amount of damage your dragon suffers from physical attacks.

Quickness: Determines your dragon's turn order and frequency. Arguably the most important stat to at least have at a decent level, since speed usually kills in most combat situations.

Intelligence: Governs the power of your dragon's magical attacks and healing.

Vitality: Increases your dragon's maximum hit points.

Mind: Reduces the damage your dragon suffers from magical attacks.

Level and Breath

This is in addition to Level, which is a quick reminder of your dragon's overall combat capacity, and Hit Points. If a dragon's hit points are reduced to zero, they are knocked out.

Breath is also a stat, but it's always at a 120 unit limit, so there's not much to talk about there. It starts at zero at the start of a Coliseum run, is used to power your advanced attacks, and is reset once you leave battle.

How to Distribute Your Stat Points

Your dragons start with a certain amount of stat points, which are distributed in a certain way depending on the dragon's breed. On level-up you get stat points to add to any of your stats. Here are some pointers:

You'll probably want to dedicate your dragons to either physical or magical attacks so they only have to invest in one of Strength or Intellect.

When in doubt, raise Quickness. Having 50 Strength won't do you much good if your enemies are getting two turns to your one.

Besides that, a balanced approach is usually better. At certain milestones for each stat, the amount of points needed to raise said stat go up by 1, making putting all of your eggs into the same basket a poor idea under most circumstances.

You should have at least one dragon that can take damage, which diminishes the damage per turn your enemies may be able to deal.

Magic appears to be the stronger type of damage, so your dedicated damage dealer should pump up their Intellect and Quickness.

For your third dragon, you should have a healer and backup damage dealer.

This is just how I would (and probably am going to) build my Coliseum party. Find out what works for you and work from there. These are guidelines, not commands.

Conclusion

Well, I'm catching up on 2500 words here, so I think I'll wrap it up at this point. If you still have any questions about the game, don't hesitate to visit the game's official forums over at http://flightrising.com/main.php?p=mb. If I'm unable to answer your most pressing questions, I'm sure someone else over there will be able to do so!

Thank you very much for reading! You guys (and girls/women/female members of the human race included) are the reason why I spend so much time writing quality articles!

Until the next time, take care and have fun! ;)

-Winterfate

Samuel Franklin on September 05, 2015:

Just discovered flight rising a few months ago and likely timed it perfectly to an open registration period. I must admit I haven't started playing seriously yet but I think using these tips its finally time!

Peter Yexley from UK on November 24, 2014:

Brilliant and very addictive

Darrin Perez (author) from Puerto Rico on July 15, 2013:

Yep, free to join and play. :D

I'm Winterfate on there as well :)

Jessica Peri from United States on July 15, 2013:

This looks fun and a little too addicting. Is it free to join and play? I probably shouldn't get caught up in another online game but I absolutely love dragons!

Darrin Perez (author) from Puerto Rico on July 08, 2013:

Hey there Charizard! I get that question a lot. But, I have to say probably not. There's not much reason (except for perhaps Aversa and Walhart, thanks to their unique skills that they can pass down if they marry MU), in my opinion. You get them right before the final mission and they're meant more as army filler than actual units to use.

Thanks for reading! :D

Charizard45 on July 08, 2013:

Winterfate, Im a big fan of your fire emblem awakening character reviews. Are you going to be reviewing the characters from the spotpass paralougues, Gangrel, Walhart, Emmeryn, Aversa, and Priam?

Darrin Perez (author) from Puerto Rico on July 07, 2013:

Ahh, thank you for pointing that out! (In addition, each account only starts with 50 treasure now).

Both of those changes are thanks to people abusing multiple accounts to leverage the in-game economy with extra hatchlings. :/

Jessi on July 07, 2013:

Not sure how old this is, can't be that old since the game has only been out for a month, but you must no longer get a free Boon of Fertility cuz neither my son nor I got one when creating accounts. :( My first clutch was only 2 eggs but my son's is 5 eggs so rather disappointing.