Paper airplanes are strange and mysterious constructs. Build one and give it a toss and it might hit the floor after only a few feet; build another in what feels like exactly the same way and it can soar forever. In Lifeslide the paper airplane is one of the “soar forever” types, coasting over the semi-low-poly landscapes trying to keep its speed up and the wind under its wings, finding the best path forward as the levels flow by. As it turns out, it’s good to be a paper airplane.
Lifeslide originally came out on Apple Arcade back in 2019 and eventually grew with new levels and game modes added over the course of its life there. The basics are fairly simple- skim the ground to maintain max speed, chase after the chains of tiny yellow triangle pickups to keep the timer topped off but don’t get too obsessive about it because the clock is politely forgiving, and grab the blue pickups to purchase handling upgrades. Other special pickups show up as well, such as boosts and jumps, but the real point of Lifeslide is to enjoy zipping along at a fast but manageable speed over its many different landscapes. There’s even a Zen mode that knocks out most of the crashing penalties. I’ve been putting a little time into the PC version and have enjoyed seeing what the next landscape has to offer, whether that be rivers of lava that singe the plane’s wings if it flies too close but also provide an updraft, or a crowded forest with daring pathways under arching tree roots. Lifeslide can be relaxing or challenging depending on how you choose to approach its levels, and dying on a tricky part doesn’t seem so bad when you know you could have chosen to play safe without the game judging you.
While the bits I’ve played of Lifeslide feel fairly polished it’s still got a few more months before release, landing on Steam on August 6. For today here’s its new trailer, showing off all the best gliding action a fragile paper plane could dream of.
