Games like Learn to Fly on Android and iPhone
Learn to Fly was a Flash game about a penguin who wants to fly: fly as far as you can, earn cash, buy upgrades, fly again. These phone games share that loop, or the calm of it.
We make Paper Skyline, so it's on this list, and it comes last. Every fact about the other games is from its own store page, linked under each entry. Prices are US store prices on the day we checked, and they can change.
1. Learn 2 Fly
The mobile follow-up. Its App Store page calls it the sequel to the Flash game Learn to Fly, and the penguin is back, this time with a penguin-shaped sack as his test dummy. You control the slide, take off, and fly as high and far as you can. Flying pays cash for icy upgrades, more than 60 of them, from a motor board to a rocket sled and a jetpack, and achievements on each level pay extra.
On Google Play it is called Learn 2 Fly: bounce & fly!, from HeroCraft: free, with ads and in-app purchases, and its listing says it plays offline. On the App Store it is Learn 2 Fly: Penguin game, free with in-app purchases.
2. Epic Plane Evolution
From Voodoo, and the most direct take here on launch, earn, upgrade, with a plane in place of the penguin. You pull the plane back on a slingshot, which sets the speed and angle of the launch, then guide it across the terrain for distance. Coins from each flight upgrade the plane's parts, and each level brings challenges of its own. Its store description lists an offline mode.
It is free on Google Play and the App Store, with in-app purchases. Google Play shows more than 50 million downloads and an update on 3 November 2026, so it is still being worked on.
3. Fly Challenge: Build a Plane!
From Freeplay. Here you build the plane yourself: pick wings, engines and wheels, merge parts to fly faster and stay up longer, and earn more the farther each flight goes. The flights are races against the clock, with tight turns and landings to get right, so it asks for more steering than a plain launch game.
Google Play calls it Fly Challenge: Build a Plane!: free, with ads and in-app purchases, last updated on 9 April 2026. The App Store calls it Fly Challenge: Plane Simulator, free with in-app purchases.
4. Tiny Wings (iPhone and iPad only)
Andreas Illiger's one-tap game from 2011, and the odd one out: there is no launcher. You are a bird whose wings are too small, so you slide down the hills and use them as jumps, flying as far as you can before night falls. The islands are drawn anew every day, a daily mode brings new missions, and you upgrade your nest by finishing tasks instead of buying parts.
It was the iPhone Game of the Year in Apple's App Store Rewind 2011 in Europe and many other countries. It costs $2.99 on the US App Store, which also lists in-app purchases. We could not find it on Google Play.
5. Alto's Adventure (for the calm, not the upgrades)
From Snowman: an endless snowboarding run across alpine hills, villages, woods and old ruins, with a one-button trick system, runaway llamas to rescue and weather that changes as you ride. It is not an upgrade-and-launch game. It is here for the feel: unhurried and lovely to look at, with a Zen Mode for when you only want to ride.
On the App Store it costs $4.99, with no ads or in-app purchases. On Google Play, published by Noodlecake, it is free with ads and in-app purchases, and has more than 50 million downloads.
6. Shopping Cart Hero 3
From MonkeyWantBanana: the Learn to Fly loop on wheels. You ride a shopping cart off a jump, chain tricks into combos, and unlock upgrades as you go, across three worlds with six bosses to beat. Flying, swimming and swinging all count.
On Google Play it is free, with ads and in-app purchases, last updated on 15 November 2023. On the App Store it costs $3.99. Shopping Cart Hero 5, with six worlds and tilt and touch controls, is also $3.99 on the App Store; we could not find it on Google Play.
Google Play · App Store · Shopping Cart Hero 5 on the App Store
7. Paper Skyline
Ours, and a paper plane game. A boy who can't travel yet folds a wish into a paper plane and throws it from his window. You drag back to throw, steer with the rudder, tap Boost to climb and Strike what's in your way. Each flight pays for distance, height, top speed, time in the air and what you knocked over, and the coins go to the Workshop: launcher, wings, hull, engine and fuel tank.
Instead of one ramp there are twenty-two cities, from Paris to Tokyo, each with an Elite and a Boss keeper to get past. It's free on Google Play and the App Store, with nothing to buy. Paris plays offline from the start, and every other city does once it has downloaded. On Android there is one optional rewarded ad, shown only when you ask for it.
