Steer a paper plane through gaps in storm clouds with one button: hold to climb, let go to glide down. Each gap is a point and the pace slowly rises.
What is Paper Flight?
Paper Flight is a one-button paper plane game: you hold to make the plane climb, let go to let it glide down, and steer it through the gaps in columns of storm clouds. Every gap you pass is worth one point, and the flight ends the moment the plane touches a cloud or the sea.
There are no levels, lives or items. Each flight is a single run that gets slowly harder as your score grows, so a good run depends on smooth, steady control more than on fast reactions.
How to play Paper Flight
To take off, press Start or simply hold anywhere on the playing area. While you hold, the plane accelerates upward. When you release, gravity takes over and the plane accelerates downward. Neither change is instant: the plane has weight, so it takes a moment to stop climbing after you let go, and a moment to stop sinking after you press again. Both directions have a top speed, and the plane falls a little faster than it climbs.
Columns of storm clouds scroll in from the right at a fixed distance apart, each with one gap. Fly through the gap and you score a point. Touching any part of a cloud column ends the flight, and so does touching the sea at the bottom. The top of the sky is safe: the plane simply stops rising there.
The challenge grows with your score. Every point makes the plane fly a little faster and makes the next gaps a little narrower. Speed stops rising at 30 points and the gaps stop shrinking at 35, so from then on the difficulty stays the same and the run becomes a test of consistency.
Paper Flight tips: how to fly further
Fly with rhythm. The upward push while you hold and the pull of gravity when you let go are almost equal in strength, so quick, even taps, holding and releasing for about the same time, keep the plane nearly level. Learn this hover rhythm first, then make your climbs and dives by holding or releasing a little longer.
Start moving early. The next gap can be much higher or lower than the one you just passed, up to almost a third of the screen. As soon as the plane clears a gap, look at the next one and start drifting toward its height. Arriving at the right height early leaves you time to settle into level flight before you enter the column.
Plan big climbs more carefully than big drops. The plane sinks faster than it climbs and starts sinking as soon as you let go, so a drop is easy to make late. A long climb needs to begin sooner, and you need to release before you reach the gap so the plane does not overshoot into the cloud above it.
Aim for the middle of the gap. The cloud edges are a little forgiving, but the gaps narrow as you score. Passing through the centre gives you room on both sides if your timing is slightly off.
Use the top of the sky only between columns. The plane cannot crash into the top of the screen, but the upper part of each column reaches all the way up, so staying high only helps in the open space between clouds.
Difficulty and scoring
Paper Flight has one mode. Difficulty rises with your score and then levels off: after 35 points the speed and the gap size no longer change. Your best score is saved on your device and shown next to your current score, and a new best is announced when the flight ends.
Switching to another tab pauses the flight automatically, and you can pause at any time with P, Esc or the pause button. Press Enter or Play again to start a new flight.
Where one-button flying games come from
One-button flying games have a long history in browser and phone games. In the early 2000s, Flash games in which you held a button to keep a craft flying through a scrolling cave were widely played, and in 2013 a mobile game in which you tapped to flap through gaps between pipes became a worldwide hit. Since then, tap and hold flying games have become a genre of their own.
Paper Flight was written for Hevagames from scratch. It uses the hold-to-climb style of control, and the paper plane, the storm clouds, the hills and the sea are our own design, all drawn in code.
Play Paper Flight free on Hevagames
Paper Flight runs in the browser on phones, tablets and computers, with no download. On a phone or tablet you press and hold anywhere on the screen. On a computer you can hold the mouse button, Space, the up arrow or W.
The game is silent, so you can play it anywhere, and its interface is available in 30 languages. Because a single flight lasts from a few seconds to a few minutes, it works well for short breaks.
How to play
- 1Press Start, or press and hold anywhere on the game.
- 2While you hold, the plane climbs. Let go and it glides down.
- 3Fly through the gap in each column of clouds. Every gap you pass is one point.
- 4Touching a cloud or the sea ends the flight. At the top of the sky the plane simply stops climbing.
- 5As your score grows the plane flies a little faster and the gaps get a little narrower.
Controls
Tips
- Short presses make small corrections; long holds make big climbs.
- Line up with the next gap early instead of waiting until the last moment.
- The game pauses by itself when you switch tabs.
