Cotton Puff Adventure Stage Guide: All Five Stages, Rainbow Stars and Flower Stamps

Hold jump through every bounce

One habit matters more than any route: keep the jump button held whenever you land on something springy. The game gives a much weaker launch if you aren't holding it, and while you rise without the button held it multiplies gravity by 2.2. Worked out from the game's own constants, the difference looks like this:

• Normal jump, held: about 3.8 tiles of height.
• Empty heart bubble: about 4.6 tiles held, about 1.4 tiles if you let go.
• Stomping a grump: about 3.8 tiles held, about 1 tile if you let go.
• A friend's head: about 5.6 tiles held, about 1.4 tiles if you let go (co-op only).
• Mushroom spring: about 7.9 tiles held, about 3.6 tiles if you let go.

What the result screen is measuring

Each stage has three flower stamps: all three rainbow stars, every grump on the map cheered, and a rescue inside the target time. The first two only count if you get them within one run, but stamps are saved per stage and combined across runs. You never have to collect all three at once. Get the rainbow stars on one run, cheer every grump on another, then go back for the time when you know the route.

Under the stamps, the result screen names one next goal, always in the order rainbow stars, then grumps, then time. Missed rainbow stars get a help button with three steps: a terrain clue first, then which move to use, then a dot on a small map. The star you asked about stays on screen as a hint during your next run of that stage until you pick it up.

Stage 1: Sunny Meadow

180 tiles long, built from six 30-tile sections, with 10 grumps (seven mushrooms, two frogs, one bird), 10 stars, one heart, one checkpoint after the first pit, and a 45-second target. Mushrooms walk and turn at ledges; frogs sit still, then hop toward the nearest puff within range; the bird sways side to side in the air. All three can be stomped, so you never need a bubble just to get through.

The second rainbow star sits straight above the mushroom spring in the fourth section: a held spring bounce goes high enough to collect it without moving sideways. The third is sealed in a small walled room behind a gate. Step on the switch before the tall wall, climb the wall using the block in front of it, drop down on the far side, then walk back through the opened gate.

Stage 2: Mushroom Forest

Seven sections, 13 grumps, 14 stars, one heart, two checkpoints and a 55-second target. New here: a five-tile thorn bush on the ground, a squirrel on a raised block that lobs acorns when you come within range, the first chestnut burr, and a gate that blocks the whole path rather than guarding a bonus.

The second checkpoint is placed right before the long cliff. The cliff is crossed on three five-tile platforms with two-tile gaps between them, under a bird. If you fall here in solo play you lose no heart and return to solid ground. The last rainbow star floats at the very top of the final section, past the gate. A normal jump from the platform below falls short, so plan on a bubble bounce.

Stage 3: Cloud Road

Six sections, 8 grumps, 15 stars, one checkpoint, a 50-second target and no heart pickups. Five moving clouds carry you over the pits. Side-moving clouds swing up to three tiles either side of their starting point on a five-second cycle; up-and-down clouds swing two and a half tiles on a 4.4-second cycle. The longest crossing, in the fifth section, is 23 tiles of open air bridged by three moving clouds.

Don't chase a cloud that is moving away from you. Wait on the edge until it starts coming back, because your glide only lasts 1.6 seconds per jump. Bouncing off a bubble, a spring or a friend's head gives you a full glide again; stomping a grump does not. The section with the checkpoint also holds this stage's squirrel and a burr, so bubble the squirrel before you deal with the burr.

Stage 4: Sparkle Cave

Six sections with a ceiling over the whole cave, 8 grumps of which four are burrs, only 6 stars, one heart, one checkpoint and a 60-second target. There is no mushroom spring anywhere in the cave. Burrs hurt from every side, so each one needs a bubble or a rolling kicked bubble.

There are three switches. The first opens a full-height gate across the path, with a small thorn patch between switch and gate. The second sits at the start of the fourth section and opens a walled room that holds the second rainbow star. The third is just before the rescue: a burr waits between it and the gate, and the stage's only heart sits just past the gate. The third rainbow star is over the pit you cross on three moving platforms.

Stage 5: Grumpy Cloud Castle and the boss's rhythm

The castle is short: two sections of path with 4 grumps, 3 stars, a heart, a thorn floor right before a mushroom spring, and a checkpoint, then a closed arena. Cheer all four on the way in, because only grumps from the map count toward the stamp. Cloudlets the boss summons don't count, and neither do grumps cheered automatically when he falls. The target time is 75 seconds.

The King works through a fixed list. Above half health it is rain, then dash, then summon cloudlets, each followed by a 3-second rest low over the floor. Below half the list becomes slam, rain, dash, slam, summon. Rain falls faster, the dash is 1.3 times quicker, and rests shrink to about 2.3 seconds, or 2 seconds after a slam. Solo, each summon adds up to two cloudlets, never more than three at once. Each cloudlet you cheer adds 12 to the heart gauge, so the cloudlets are what fill your heart wave.

Playing the same stages with friends

With two or three players the maps gain co-op-only grumps: Sunny Meadow goes from 10 to 11, Mushroom Forest from 13 to 16, Cloud Road from 8 to 11, Sparkle Cave from 8 to 10 and the castle from 4 to 5. The stamp for cheering every grump counts those extras, so a co-op run of that stamp is harder than a solo one.

A gate switch needs every puff that is walking around to be standing on it. Friends in a bubble or being carried aren't counted, so one bubbled player doesn't block the group. The group also can't spread out: nobody can get more than about 18 tiles from the others, and a puff left well behind for 2 seconds is put into a bubble that follows the group.

Pressing ♥ before the gauge is full puts you into a bubble on purpose. The bubble floats along above the group, and a friend's touch brings you back with at least two hearts. That is a safe way to get a struggling player over the long cloud crossings.

Common mistakes and why they happen

• Tapping jump on bubbles. A tap gives roughly a third of a held bounce, which is why high stars seem out of reach.
• Stomping burrs. They can't be stomped, and the knockout line tells you so. Bubble them first.
• Letting bubbles expire. A grump that breaks out after the timer runs out is 35% faster. Kick or pop it while the bubble holds.
• Rushing the arena. Grumps you skipped on the castle path can't be cheered later, because the wall closes behind you.
• Going for every stamp in one run. The game combines stamps across runs, so it is fine to collect them one at a time.