Updraft

Updraft is a one-tap flying game: you're a little paper-winged blob riding the wind through gaps in towering wind gates. Tap to flap upward, hold to spread your wings and glide. Simple to learn, hard to master — and every day there's a new level that everyone plays.

How to play Updraft

1. Tap anywhere to flap upward.
2. Hold your finger down to glide — you'll fall slowly instead of dropping.
3. Fly through the gap in each wind gate. Every gate is a point.
4. Don't touch the gates or the ground. Grab gold coins on the way.

Tips to get a high score

• Small, steady taps beat big panicky ones — aim for the middle of the next gap.
• Use glide on long drops between gates instead of tapping to stay level.
• Skimming a gate pops a “CLOSE!” streak — it's just for show, so don't risk a run on it.
• Watch your friends' ghosts: they show you the line that worked.

How Updraft gets harder

Updraft ramps up over roughly the first minute of a run. In that time the wind speeds up by about 60%, the gaps in the gates shrink by about a third, and the gates come closer together. After that the numbers stop climbing, so once you're past the one-minute mark the pace holds steady.

The gaps also start to wander. Early on, each gap sits fairly close to the height of the last one. By the end of the ramp, the next gap can be more than twice as far up or down, so you'll get steep climbs followed straight away by long dives.

Your first gate is a freebie. It's extra wide and sits right in the middle of the screen, so you can settle into a rhythm before the real gates arrive.

Tap vs hold in Updraft

Every touch starts with a flap. Pressing down always launches you upward by the same amount, whether you let go straight away or keep holding. Each flap lifts you about a third of an early gap.

If you keep holding, your wings open after a split second, but only once you've stopped rising quickly. From then on you sink slowly at a capped speed instead of dropping, until you let go.

So gliding is a way down, not a way to hover. When the next gap is lower than you, flap once, keep holding, and float down into it. To climb, use separate taps. Holding between them won't gain you any height.

Hitting the top of the screen won't end your run. You bounce off and start falling. Only the gates and the ground knock you out.

Points, close calls and coins

Each gate you get through is worth one point, and that's the only thing that adds to your score. If you clear a gate with only a few pixels to spare you get a CLOSE! pop-up, and close passes in a row count up as CLOSE x2, x3 and so on. The streak doesn't add points, and one clean pass resets it.

Gold coins hang in a little under half of the gates, always somewhere near the middle of the gap. They don't raise your score either. They go toward cosmetic hats for your blob. Grab them when they're on your line, but don't swerve for one.

For a long run, aim a little below the middle of each gap rather than dead centre. A flap always lifts you, so starting low gives it room without clipping the top pillar. From there, the safest climb is a short series of small taps.

Daily levels and ghost races

Today's Updraft level is the same for everyone, and you race the ghosts of other players' runs. How daily levels and challenges work.

FAQ

Add Updraft to your site

Updraft is free to embed on your blog, class page or website. Paste this code:

<iframe src="https://tapamine.com/embed/updraft/" title="Updraft: free one-tap game" width="360" height="640" style="border:0;border-radius:16px;max-width:100%" allow="autoplay; fullscreen; web-share" loading="lazy"></iframe>

If you like this, try

See all 100 games →