Paper Drift Tips and Tricks: 15 Ways to Score Higher

The fastest way to score higher in Paper Drift is to control your speed: fly flat through open air, bank early before tight gaps and use every breather to line up the next beam. On top of that, thermals double your points, stamps add 5 or 10 at a time, and every boss has a tell you can learn.

Here are 15 tips, taken straight from how the game works. In Endless you score one point per beam, and the speed ramps up until it reaches its top around 70 points, so from there on a high score is all about reading the shaft.

Paper Drift flying tips

1. Choose the controls that suit you

Halves, Steer Pad or Tilt: choose how you steer in Settings → Controls. Halves is the default, the Steer Pad gives you two arrow keys you place and size yourself, and Tilt steers with the phone. There’s a left-handed layout too. Give each scheme a few runs before you decide; the best one is the one you stop thinking about.

2. Fly flat when the way is clear

Fly level to dive faster. A flat plane falls fastest, which is exactly what you want through open air and in Time Attack, where every second counts. Save your banking for when you need it.

3. Bank early before a tight gap

Banking slows your fall. The trick is timing: tilt early to buy time before a tight gap, not at the last moment when the beam is already on you. A plane that arrives slow has time to line up; one that arrives fast has to be perfect.

A white paper plane banks across a Depot shaft of stacked cardboard parcels, lining up for the next gap — Bank early, arrive slow, line up the gap.

4. Ride the wall, but know the cost

Hug a wall and you dive faster, which helps in Time Attack and Race. The price: every scrape locks your steering for a moment and resets your clean streak. Never ride a wall into a stretch where you’ll need to steer straight away.

5. Peel off clean

Bank away from a wall and you leave it without a scrape. A scrape only happens while you move into the wall, so tilt out before you push off. Your clean streak survives, and some quests only count clean flying.

6. Set your line in the breathers

Every few beams the shaft opens up. Use the quiet to get back to the middle, slow down and pick your line for the next section. A new world also opens with a breather, so take the moment to settle before its new obstacles arrive.

7. Trust the gap

Pistons, shutters and blades never close the shaft. There’s always a gap. Every stretch of the shaft is test-flown by the game’s own simulation before it ships, so when something looks shut, it isn’t: wait for the gap or look for the other side.

Scoring tips

8. Ride the thermals

Fly through a thermal and you are invincible for 8 seconds, with every point doubled for the first second. When you see one, go for it: a golden frame around the screen tells you the shield is on.

A paper plane dives inside the golden frame of a thermal's shield, with a coin trail below it in the Foundry — Eight seconds of invincibility. The first one pays double.

9. Grab stamps, ideally in a thermal

A stamp is worth 5 points, or 10 in a thermal, as long as it lands inside the first second’s double points. Stamps are also pieces of a jigsaw album, so every one you catch is worth taking. If a stamp sits just past a thermal, fly the thermal first.

10. Fly straight through streamers

Streamers can’t hurt you. They’re paper ribbons, only decoration. Fly straight through and save the dodge for something that matters.

11. Lean into gust vents

Gust vents push you sideways. Lean into the air to hold your line, and start leaning as you enter the vent, not after it has already moved you.

12. Fall flat through chutes

There’s no room to bank inside a chute. Fall flat through it, then slow down for the exit, where the next beam is waiting.

Hazard tips

The first time you meet a world’s special obstacles, a banner names them with a one-line hint; after that, only a rumble of the shaft warns you they’re coming. Each hint is the whole trick, so here they all are:

Banner	World	What to do
CRANES!	Classic	Time the swing of the crates
ICE FLOES!	Glacier	Follow the gap as it drifts
FLYTRAPS!	Jungle	They rear back, then lunge
GHOSTS!	Halloween	Solid while they glow: slip through as they fade
LASERS!	Aliens	They charge up, then fire across
VINES!	Jungle, Desert	You can fly through them, but they slow you down

A crate swings on a crane cable above a white paper plane in Paper Drift's Classic shaft — CRANES! Time the swing of the crates.

14. Learn each boss’s tell

Six worlds send something after you. Each has one rule that beats it:

Drone (Depot): it throws parcels up at you. Sidestep them.
Rockfall (Foundry): rocks fall where the top glows, and some bounce off the walls.
Saucer (Aliens): don’t stay in its beam. Half a second and you’re abducted.
Saguaro (Desert): its cactus balls sprout roots to the sides. Dodge wide.
Ice Wizard (Glacier): dodge the icicles and keep out of its frost ray. The longer it touches you, the slower you get.
Spectre (Halloween): get out of its shadow before the ghost appears.

The Depot's drone takes aim at a stained-glass paper plane as cardboard parcels fly up the shaft — Drone

The saucer's green tractor beam fills the middle of the shaft beside a paper plane in the Aliens world — Saucer

An angry saguaro cactus holds up a cactus ball while an earlier one spreads roots sideways above a paper plane — Saguaro

The ice wizard fires a frost ray up the shaft at a paper plane beside a falling icicle — Ice Wizard

For the full breakdown, with pictures of every attack, read every boss in Paper Drift.

Collecting tips

15. Bank your coins and go deeper for rare figures

Coins are banked when a run ends. Quit from pause and you keep none, so never quit a run whose coins you want to keep. Now and then a coin trail hides a big coin worth five. And tap the figures in the windows: each one is 10 coins and a place in your Showcase, and tapping never steers the plane. Rarer figures only turn up deeper into a run, which is one more reason to fly carefully past the first few hundred points.

A paper plane follows a trail of gold coins with a larger star coin among them in the overgrown Jungle — Now and then a coin trail hides a big coin. It's worth five.

Keep practising

The simulation is deterministic, so a stretch that beat you can be learned, and in Time Attack a ghost of your best run shows you your own line. If you’re just starting out, the Paper Drift beginner’s guide covers the controls, the modes and energy, and the worlds page shows every world you’ll fly through.

Questions

How do you score points in Paper Drift?

In Endless you score one point for every beam you pass. A stamp adds 5 points, and during the first second after a thermal every point counts double, so a stamp is worth 10.

What does a thermal do in Paper Drift?

Flying through a thermal makes you invincible for 8 seconds, and every point you score in the first second counts double.

Does Slow Mode count in Paper Drift?

Yes, for your personal bests and unlocks. Runs in Slow Mode do not count for the leaderboards.