The stamp album: all 13 stamps, their pieces and their odds

How they work

• A stamp is worth 5 points (10 inside a thermal) and is also one piece of one of the album’s stamps.
• They turn up from 30 points, about 1.3 for every 100 points of a run, and they do not hang still: they sway up to 110 pixels either side on a 2.3-second swing. You have to go and meet them.
• Pieces are kept only in Endless and the Daily Drift, banked at the end of the run onto their stamp’s tray. Time Attack has no stamps; in Race they only score.
• In the Showcase’s STAMPS tab every stamp has its own table: drag each piece into place to put it together.
• They glow in their tier’s colour: green common, blue rare, red mythic, yellow legendary and rainbow ultra. The rarer the stamp, the bigger its puzzle: 4, 6, 9 or 12 pieces.
• Any piece can come at any time, including ones you already have. A repeated piece is not wasted (see Repeats and copies).

The 13 stamps

Paper Dart

Common2×2 = 4 pieces

On every map

The first stamp in any album: a dart on a summer sky, dashes and all.

Paper Boat

Common2×2 = 4 pieces

On every map

Folded from yesterday's newspaper and sailed into the sunset.

Folded Crane

Common2×2 = 4 pieces

On every map

A crane across a red sun. Fold a thousand, they say, and you get a wish.

Balloon Day

Rare2×3 = 6 pieces

On every map

Three balloons over the hills, and only one of them made it onto the stamp.

Night Light

Rare2×3 = 6 pieces

On every map

Its lamp sweeps the dark every nine seconds, rain or shine.

Harvest Mill

Rare2×3 = 6 pieces

On every map

Four sails turning over a field of wheat, printed in harvest gold.

Noon Oasis

Rare2×3 = 6 pieces

Desert only

Two palms leaning over the only water for a day's walk, and a paper plane that came a long way for a look.

Deep Singer

Mythic3×3 = 9 pieces

On every map

A whale breathing out through the swell, and a school of fish pretending not to notice.

Dragon Kite

Mythic3×3 = 9 pieces

On every map

Red and gold, with a tail of scales that never quite stops moving.

Night Visitors

Mythic3×3 = 9 pieces

Aliens only

A saucer over a sleeping field, beaming up the one paper plane that got away.

Dusk Caravan

Mythic3×3 = 9 pieces

Desert only

Three camels and their guide crossing the dunes by the last of the light, and a paper plane going on ahead.

Golden Airship

Legendary3×4 = 12 pieces

On every map

Printed in real gold leaf for one evening's post, then never again.

The Misprint

Ultra3×4 = 12 pieces

On every map

The press ran one sheet upside down before anyone noticed. Collectors still argue about how many survived.

Drop rates

Every stamp you take first rolls its tier, from the score you take it at: rare from 40, mythic from 120, legendary from 250 and ultra from 400. Then one stamp of that tier and one of its pieces are picked, each as likely as the next. Map stamps are not in this roll.

Map stamps

Three stamps are never in the ordinary roll: Night Visitors is found only on the Aliens map, and Noon Oasis and Dusk Caravan only in the Desert. On its map, every stamp you take has a 35% chance of being one of its pieces, at any score, until you hold it whole (repeats included on the way). The other 65% follows the ordinary table.

• The Desert deals its two one at a time, in order: Noon Oasis until it is whole, then Dusk Caravan. Having two does not double the chance.
• Air mail never brings a map stamp: it is found on its map or not at all.
• Once they are whole, those maps deal the ordinary album like any other.

How long it takes

Stamps you need to take on average to finish each one from shaft pieces alone, with the odds from 400 points on (map stamps, taken on their map). The repeats along the way are not wasted: they build copies for the post office.

Points worked out at 1.3 stamps per 100 points. An average: anyone’s luck varies a lot.

Repeats and copies

• A piece you already hold goes onto its stamp’s tray, beside its twin (shown as a stack, “×N”).
• Until the stamp is finished, repeats wait. Once it is, what is on the tray builds copies of it on the same table.
• Finished copies go on a pile, and they are what the post office takes.

The post office

The post office key sits beside the album’s heading and comes alive with your first finished stamp or your first repeated piece. Buy an envelope in a tier’s colour, stick 5 finished copies of stamps of that tier on it (colours never mix) and send it: an envelope of the next colour flies back with 1 random piece of the tier above. The game prints these odds on the counter and before every purchase.

• Ultras cannot be sent: there is no tier above them.
• You can hold one bought, unsent envelope per colour. Sending it spends it.
• Your first envelope is free. The first time you hold a repeated piece, the post office explains itself and gives you a green envelope; if you are short of copies, it gives you commons you have already put together (or the post office’s own stamp if you have none yet). Sending it brings back a rare piece you did not have, guaranteed — or a repeat if you already hold them all.
• Coins only buy envelopes: the stamps always come from pieces caught in the shaft. Nothing else is sold.

Rewards

• Every stamp finished for the first time: +5 energy in the Storage.
• The whole album (all 13): the Philatelist plane.
• Mastery quests: collect 10, 50, 250, 1,000, 2,500, 5,000 and 10,000 stamps; complete 1, 3, 6 and 13 stamps in the album. Daily: collect 2, 5, 8 or 15 stamps. See the quests.