Guide
Paper Drift Time Attack: All 8 Courses and Medal Times
Paper Drift Time Attack explained: 8 hand-built courses, a ghost of your best run, every bronze-to-dev medal time, what medals open and what they pay.
Time Attack in Paper Drift is a race against the clock down eight hand-built courses. Each attempt costs 1 energy, the course is exactly the same every time, and a ghost of your best run flies beside you. Every course has four medals, bronze, silver, gold and dev, and medals are what open the later courses and pay out coins.
This guide lists every course, every medal time, what each medal unlocks and how to find the tenths of a second you are missing.
How Time Attack works
Tap OTHER MODES on the title screen, then TIME ATTACK. The course list shows each course’s seal, a one-line description, your best time, the medal slots and the next target, such as “BRONZE — finish under 00:25.00”.
- 1 energy per attempt, against 3 for an Endless run. The tank holds 30 and refills a point every four minutes.
- A fixed layout. Nothing on a course is random: the same girders, pistons and fans in the same places on every attempt.
- A ghost of your best run. From your first finish on, your best run flies with you. The clock sits at the top of the screen with your split against the ghost under it, and a bar along the bottom shows your progress, the ghost’s position and three checkpoint marks.
- No revives. A crash ends the attempt. Retry restarts in place, so you are falling again straight away.
- Nothing to collect. Time Attack has no stamps, no window figures and no coins in the shaft. It is you, the course and the clock.
Short runs, no internet: tap play and you are already falling. Crashed? Go again in one second.
The 8 courses
The courses teach one idea each and then mix them, from plain girders to The Crease, which throws everything at you.
| # | Course | What is in it | How it opens |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Fold Line | Girders only, wide gaps. | Open from the start |
| 2 | Rivet Row | Dense static girders. Commit to a line. | Open from the start |
| 3 | The Bellows | Pistons. Find the rhythm. | Open from the start |
| 4 | Slat & Shutter | Shutters and shelves. Timing windows. | 3 bronze medals or better |
| 5 | Updraft | Gust vents. Manage the drift. | 2 silver medals or better |
| 6 | Rotor Hall | Fans. The first real wall. | 4 silver medals or better |
| 7 | Paper Mill | Drums and guillotines. Mixed cadence. | 2 gold medals or better |
| 8 | The Crease | Everything. Three checkpoints of escalating chaos. | 3 gold medals or better |
A gate only counts medals, and medals from any course count. One bronze short of Slat & Shutter? Go back to Fold Line and beat your own time: it counts the same. A better medal also covers the lesser ones, so a gold counts toward a bronze gate too.
Medals and medal times
Each course has four medals, one per target time: bronze, silver, gold and dev, a violet medal meant to stay out of reach for most players. A course keeps your best medal, and the card shows the next one to aim for.
These are the targets at the time of writing. Finish under the time to earn the medal.
| Course | Bronze | Silver | Gold | Dev |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fold Line | 25.00 s | 24.00 s | 23.00 s | 22.75 s |
| Rivet Row | 43.00 s | 42.00 s | 41.00 s | 40.85 s |
| The Bellows | 36.00 s | 33.50 s | 32.75 s | 32.65 s |
| Slat & Shutter | 33.00 s | 32.25 s | 31.75 s | 31.55 s |
| Updraft | 29.00 s | 28.50 s | 28.10 s | 28.00 s |
| Rotor Hall | 38.00 s | 37.00 s | 36.00 s | 35.25 s |
| Paper Mill | 40.00 s | 39.00 s | 38.00 s | 37.90 s |
| The Crease | 70.00 s | 68.00 s | 66.00 s | 65.00 s |
Look at the gaps: on most courses dev is only a few tenths under gold. That is the whole difference between a clean run and a perfect one.
What medals pay
Coins
The first time a course earns each medal, it pays coins, once:
| Medal | Coins |
|---|---|
| Bronze | 50 |
| Silver | 150 |
| Gold | 300 |
| Dev | 500 |
Jump straight to gold and you are paid the whole ladder, bronze and silver included. A course taken all the way to dev pays 1,000 coins, which makes 8,000 across the eight courses. The coins are stamped onto a MEDAL REWARDS sheet the next time you open the course list or the title screen, with your best time and how much you need to cut for the next medal.
Energy
The first gold (or dev) on each course also puts +3 energy in your Storage, where it waits until you tap USE.
Planes and trails
Time Attack has its own cosmetic rewards for the Hangar:
- Confetti trail: earn 3 gold medals.
- Foil plane, gold with a highlight that sweeps: earn 8 gold medals.
- Carbon plane, dark with white creases: finish The Crease.
- Bronze, Silver, Gold and Dev Ribbon trails: medal all eight courses at that tier or better.
Every plane flies exactly the same, so none of this makes you faster. It just shows that you are.
Leaderboards
Every course has its own leaderboard on Google Play Games (Android) and Game Center (iPhone), alongside Endless and Daily Drift. Times go up in hundredths, never better than the time the game showed you. Slow Mode is there if the speed is too much, and it still counts for your personal records, but not for the leaderboards.
How to shave time off a course
Learn the course, not the reflex
The course is the same on every attempt, and the moving parts follow fixed cycles. Fly the same line with the same timing and you get the same result. Treat the first attempts as scouting: find where each gap is, then commit to one line and repeat it.
Fly level, brake only where you must
A level plane falls fastest, and banking slows your fall. A fast run is mostly flat, with short, early banks where a gap demands them. Late, heavy banking is where most tenths go.
Walls are a gamble
Hugging a wall makes you dive faster, but every scrape locks your steering for a moment. On a wide-open stretch that can buy time; before a tight gap it can cost the run.
Timing courses: find the rhythm
Pistons, shutters and blades never close the shaft: there is always a gap. On The Bellows, Slat & Shutter, Rotor Hall and Paper Mill, a small bank a little early to arrive on the beat beats a big dodge at the last moment. On Updraft, lean into the gusts to hold your line.
Chase the ghost, not the clock
The ghost’s dot on the progress bar tells you where you are losing time. If you are level at the first checkpoint and behind at the second, the problem is between them. Fix one section at a time.
When the clock gets too much, Endless is waiting, touring eight worlds with bosses of their own. New to the game? Start with the Paper Drift beginner’s guide, then sharpen up with these Paper Drift tips and tricks.
Questions
How many Time Attack courses does Paper Drift have?
Eight hand-built courses. The first three are open from the start, and medals open the other five.
What are the Time Attack medals?
Bronze, silver, gold and a violet dev medal, each for finishing a course under a target time. The dev medal is the hardest, usually a fraction of a second under gold.
How much energy does Time Attack cost?
One energy per attempt, against three for an Endless run. There are no revives: a crash ends the attempt, and a retry starts again in place.
How do I unlock The Crease?
Hold a gold medal or better on any three courses. Medals from any course count toward every gate.
What do Time Attack medals pay?
Coins the first time a course earns each medal: 50 for bronze, 150 for silver, 300 for gold and 500 for dev. A course's first gold also puts +3 energy in your Storage.
