Answers to the things people ask most.
If none of this covers it, email Brandon@neondriftgame.com — it reaches me directly. Include your in-game callsign, and for anything involving a purchase, roughly when it happened.
Sign in with the same account you linked before, then open the Store in the mobile app and tap Restore Purchases. Your callsign, leaderboard history and purchased content come back with it.
On iPhone or iPad you can buy without signing in, so if you never linked an account, use the same Apple ID on the new device and tap Restore Purchases — the App Store is what remembers the purchase. That restores what you bought but not your progress or leaderboard history, which need a linked account. Signing in afterwards attaches those purchases to your account so they follow you to other devices too.
This one's on me, and I can fix it by hand today. On iPhone and iPad, Sign in with Apple is the only sign-in — Google sign-in isn't offered there. So when you sign in with Apple for the first time, the game has no way to tell that you're the same person who played on Android or the web, and it starts you a brand-new account. Your old account is untouched and nothing is lost; it just isn't the one you're signed into.
Some things still look right because leaderboard entries are stored under your callsign — your classic best will follow you over. Levels, skin mastery, Storm score and purchases are stored under your account, so those stay behind.
Email Brandon@neondriftgame.com with your callsign and say you moved to iPhone. I'll point your Apple sign-in at your original account, and everything reappears the next time you open the game. There's nothing you need to do in the app first, and please don't delete anything while you wait.
A proper in-app version of this is being built — you'll claim a short code on the web or on Android and enter it on your iPhone, no email needed.
Same cause as the question above, and the same fix: email Brandon@neondriftgame.com with your callsign. A callsign can only ever be linked to the one account that first claimed it, which is what stops anyone from taking over your name — so the merge has to go through me for now.
No. You can play the entire game without signing in. Linking an account is what lets your progress survive a reinstall or move between devices, and it's required to appear on the global leaderboards — but it's your choice. On iPhone and iPad you can also buy without an account; on Android, purchases are tied to your linked account so they can be restored.
Your name on every leaderboard and in every match. It's how other players see you and how I find your account if you write in.
If your callsign is linked to an account: Settings → Profile → Danger Zone → Delete My Data. Full details, including what is and isn't removed, are on the data deletion page.
Everyone in the world flies the same seeded course each day — identical obstacles in an identical order. You get one run at the global daily board, and it resets at midnight UTC. Same course for everyone is the whole point: it makes the scores directly comparable instead of a story about who got a kinder layout.
Consecutive days you've completed the Daily Challenge. Streaks unlock some of the better cosmetics in the game, so they're worth protecting. If you enable notifications, you'll get a reminder on a day you haven't played yet and your streak is at risk.
Sometimes. There's a limited streak-restore option in the game. If something clearly went wrong on my end, write in and I'll take a look.
Finish a Classic or Projectile Storm run and tap CHALLENGE A FRIEND. You get a link to the exact course you just flew, with your score on it. Send it however you like.
The identical course — same pipes, same tunnels, same order — and your score to beat. From a Storm run it's the same projectiles at the same angles and speeds instead. They always fly the mode you flew, so the two scores mean the same thing. Both are shown side by side at the end, and they can send it back. If they have the Android app installed, the link opens it directly.
The person you sent it to is on an older version. Storm links carry which mode to play, and builds from before 10 September 2026 have no way to read that, so they open the menu rather than start the wrong game. Ask them to update. Classic challenge links are unaffected and work on every version.
Yes. The first time you fly a given course it counts like a Classic run for XP, levels and unlocks. Replaying the same course still earns XP but stops counting toward stats, so nobody can memorise one course and farm it. Challenge runs never go on a leaderboard.
No, and that is deliberate. Everyone gets one attempt at the same ranked course, so a link to it would let people practise before their real run.
It should on Android if the app is installed. On iPhone and iPad it opens in the browser — that is expected for now, not a fault. Either way the game runs properly in the browser and your progress follows your account, so the challenge works the same; it just starts in Safari rather than in the app.
Fly 40 runs while that season's window is open. Every mode counts — Classic, Daily, Storm, Versus and Last Pilot Standing. Once earned it is yours permanently.
Each runs 21 days and closes the day after its holiday: JACK around Halloween, GOBBLE around Thanksgiving, TINSEL around Christmas, CUPID around Valentine's and BUNNY around Easter. The Skins screen shows your progress and the days remaining while one is open.
No. Seasons return every year. You will get another chance at the same skin next time the window comes round.
Runs only count while a window is actually open, and the game checks that against the server rather than your device clock — so changing your phone's date will not open one. If a window is open and your count is not moving, check your connection and tell me.
Almost everything is earned by playing — scores, levels, daily streaks, podium finishes, multiplayer wins and total runs flown. A small number of cosmetics are available as optional purchases in the mobile app. None of them affect gameplay.
The level cap is 100. Past that you enter prestige, shown as chevrons next to your name, up to a tenth tier with its own marker. Prestige is cosmetic — it's a record of time invested, not an advantage.
Tags you can display next to your callsign, earned for specific achievements — some for scores, some for finishing in the top percentage of players. You can see every title and its requirement in the game, including ones you haven't earned yet, so you know what to chase.
Tap any callsign — in your friends list or on a leaderboard — and you get that pilot's card: their record, drawn in cosmetics they picked for it. You set your own from Settings → Edit Profile Card, choosing the bird, pipe colour, pipe design, tunnel and background you want to be seen in. It stays as you set it whatever you happen to be flying, so it's a pose rather than a mirror.
Cards are public. Anyone playing the game can open yours, not just your friends, and they don't need to be signed in to do it. Everything on a card comes from play you have already posted — scores, matches and Daily results — so there is nothing on it you haven't already entered into the game. If you'd rather not have one, don't link an account: cards exist only for linked callsigns.
Your run count syncs at the end of a run, so a brand-new linked account shows 0 until you finish one. If you have been playing for a while and the number still looks low, it will correct itself the next time you finish a run on a device you're signed in on.
No, and that's deliberate. A mode only disappears from a card if you've never played it — a losing record stays, because hiding it would make someone who lost eight matches look identical to someone who never entered. The cards are worth something because they're honest.
Not currently. When ads do arrive they will never be mandatory and never interrupt you — you'll never be made to watch one to continue playing or to get back to the menu. Optional, rewarded, and always your choice. That's a design rule, not a current limitation; more on the reasoning on the about page.
Cosmetics and supporter status. Nothing you can buy makes you faster, gives you extra lives, or improves your score. A paying player and a free player compete on exactly the same terms — which matters, because the leaderboards are the point of the game.
Three cosmetics from one idea bought together — a pipe interior, tunnel art and a background that all belong to the same place — rather than three separate unlocks. The two so far: Koi Pond, a night pond seen from three depths, and Osaka Night, one rainy night in the city seen through a window, from a castle moat and from across a canal. Buying one unlocks all three of its pieces at once, and they then behave exactly like anything you earned: equip them separately, mix them with anything else, change them whenever you like.
Yes. Combo packs and the premium skins sold individually have a PREVIEW button on their card in the Store. (PRISM is the exception — it comes bundled with the Supporter Pack rather than on its own, so it sits in a different part of the screen.) It runs a full-screen demo of the real game with that item equipped — the actual pipes, tunnel and background, or the actual bird flying with its own trail and flap effect. Nothing is charged and nothing is unlocked; close it and you are back in the Store. Items you earn by playing do not have a preview button, because you can already see them on the Skins screen.
All three pieces unlock together, so this should not happen. If it does, try Restore Purchases in the Store, and check under PIPES, TUNNELS and BACKGROUND on the Skins screen — the three pieces live in three different places rather than in one bundle. If something is still missing, email me with your callsign.
Try Restore Purchases in the Store first. If it still isn't there, email me with your callsign and the approximate date and I'll sort it out.
The theme is “Grid Drifters”, written for Neon Drift by @HyprCrz. It's on by default and loops while you play.
Settings → Profile → Music has an on/off switch and a volume slider, and your choice is remembered. On iPhone and iPad the music also follows your ringer switch — if the phone is on silent you won't hear it, which is the behaviour most people expect.
Both are Versus modifiers, not bugs. Whoever sent you the challenge chose the rules for the match, and they apply to both of you equally.
The full list is on the game modes page. You'll only ever see these in a Versus match — they never apply to Classic, the Daily Challenge or Last Pilot Standing.
One specific thing changed, on 1 September 2026, and it was a bug fix rather than a difficulty setting. Past score 100 the game limits how far one gap can sit from the last one, so you never get the bottom of the screen followed immediately by the top. That limit had been set by eye, and when it was finally checked against what the bird can actually do — flap strength, gravity, and the exact number of frames between two pipes — it turned out to be 25 to 44 pixels beyond reach. Some pairs the game dealt could not be cleared by anybody, however good they were.
So it is not that the game got easier; it is that it stopped occasionally asking for the impossible. The typical gap-to-gap jump barely moved at all — about ten pixels at Wave 5, and only three and five at Waves 6 and 7. Speeds, gap sizes, pipe spacing, projectiles and scoring are all exactly where they were, and only the most extreme pairs changed at all. If you were dying past 100 to something that felt unfair, it probably was, and thank you to everyone who said so — that report is what got it checked.
One honest caveat: the limits are worked out for a player tapping around eight times a second. If you tap a good deal slower than that, the very tightest pairs can still be out of your reach even now.
It's the same game and the same code. The app adds purchases, notifications and offline launching. Progress follows your account either way.
If you're on a phone with an adaptive or "smooth" display — a Pixel, a Samsung flagship, most recent high-end Android — the screen changes its refresh rate on the fly, jumping between 60Hz and 120Hz while you play. The game runs its physics at a steady 60 steps a second by design, because that's what keeps the Daily Challenge and multiplayer identical for everyone. When the screen's rate keeps moving and the game's doesn't, the mismatch can read as judder even though no frames are being dropped and nothing is running slow.
The fix: Settings → Display → Smooth Display, turned off. That pins the screen to 60Hz. A player hit exactly this in September 2026 and it cleared it outright.
I would rather not need that, and I did try to fix it in the game first — the obvious candidate was the clock the game uses to time its drawing, and correcting it made no difference on the device that had the problem. So for now this is a genuine interaction between the game's fixed timing and a screen that keeps changing its own, and the setting is the honest answer rather than a brush-off. If you hit this, please tell me what phone you are on — I have exactly one confirmed case, and knowing whether it is common changes what is worth building.
Close other tabs and apps first — a browser game shares the device with everything else running. Battery-saver modes can also throttle it. If it's still rough, tell me your exact device and what you were doing; performance reports are taken seriously here, and a few have led to real fixes written up in the articles.
One known behaviour worth naming: on iPhone, iOS itself drops a frame on every screen touch. That is measurable on a page containing nothing but a canvas and a single listener, so it is not something the game is doing, and not something it can fix. If you notice a very small hitch on each tap, that is what it is.
Leaderboard scores need a linked account and a live connection. If both were in place and it still didn't show, send me your callsign and roughly when you played.