Game guide: World 1, The Paper World
This guide explains what every part of World 1, The Paper World does, from your first mill to the edge of the observable universe at fold 102. New to the game? Start with How to play, the short beginner version.
It explains what things do, not how to play them: every choice in the game is yours to make. Where a number is given, it's one the game shows you too.
1. Paper and mills
Paper is what everything costs. You make it two ways: by tapping the sky, and with mills, which make paper every second without you.
There are ten mills, from the Scrap Collector and the Pulp Vat up to the Lunar Pulpworks and the Star Loom. Each new kind appears as you climb, and each makes far more paper than the one before it. Every mill you buy costs a little more than the last one of its kind.
- Milestones. Each mill doubles its output when you own 10, 25, 50 and 100 of it, and keeps doubling after that. A puff of paper marks the moment.
- Colors. Every 100 of one mill changes the color of the paper it sends flying onto your stack, from white through the colors to rainbow.
- ⭐ Best buy. Once you own a few mills, a card at the top of the tab shows the mill that adds the most paper per second for its price, and how much the next one adds.
- ×1, ×10 and Max choose how many to buy at once. Max buys as many as you can afford.
Taps get stronger too: the Nimble Fingers upgrade doubles the paper from each tap, and Firm Thumb makes every tap also add a share of your paper per second.
2. Folding, pressure and Auto-Fold
Folding costs paper, and every fold costs more than the last. The fold button shows the price and lights up once you can afford it. Each fold doubles your stack's height.
From that moment, pressure starts to build. At the start the bar takes about 30 seconds to fill, and the game shows how much extra paper the next fold will add. A fold at full pressure gives the whole bonus; an earlier fold gives part of it. The bonus lasts for the rest of the climb, and the Stats tab adds it all up as "Pressure bonus this run".
Folding at full pressure again and again builds a full-pressure streak. The Stats tab keeps your current and best streak, and several achievements count it.
Some upgrades and gold perks, like Patient Hands, Thin Air and Quick Breath, make pressure fill faster. Their descriptions show the current time to full.
The 🔁 Auto-Fold upgrade adds a little helper that folds for you at full pressure, even while you're away. Switch it on and off with the Auto box on the fold button. Auto-Fold always stops one fold before the edge of the universe, so the final fold is yours.
3. Layers
Every fold doubles the number of layers in your stack: 2, 4, 8, and after 10 folds more than a thousand. The Unfold tab counts them.
Layers do two things. They make paper: each fold makes all your paper ×1.08, and the layers box shows the total. And they become creases when you unfold (see Unfolding and creases).
4. Landmarks, gold and the field guide
Your stack passes 38 real landmarks on the way to the edge of the observable universe: a coin, a house cat, the Eiffel Tower, Mount Everest, the Space Station, the Moon, every planet, the nearest star, nebulas, the center of the Milky Way, the Andromeda Galaxy and more. The text under your height always names the next one.
- A moment and a fact. Each landmark appears in the sky, many with their own animation, and shows a real fun fact as you pass it.
- Gold. Every landmark you pass pays gold, and landmarks farther out pay more. The first time ever you pass one, it pays triple. Tap your gold counter to see what the next landmark pays.
- The field guide in the Stats tab collects every landmark you've reached, with its fact. The next few show as "???", with the fold that reveals them.
5. Upgrades
Upgrades cost paper and last for the current climb: unfolding resets them. Some have levels; each description shows what the next level does and what you have now.
- Taps: Nimble Fingers and Firm Thumb.
- Pressure: Patient Hands (fills faster) and Bone Folder (full-pressure folds give more).
- 🔁 Auto-Fold and Round-the-Clock Mills (mills at full speed while you're away).
- Steam Pulping: all mills ×2 per level.
- Landmark upgrades. Passing certain landmarks unlocks a new upgrade: Iron Rollers at the Eiffel Tower, Thin Air at Mount Everest, Zero-G Pulping at the edge of space, Orbital Tailwind at the Space Station, then upgrades at the Moon, the Sun, Pluto, Voyager 1 and the nearest star. Most of them multiply all your mills.
6. Gold perks and paper styles
Gold perks cost gold and are permanent: they stay when you unfold. Many have levels.
- Golden Touch: all paper +10% per level.
- Quick Breath and Deep Breath: faster pressure, and bigger full-pressure folds.
- Head Start: every climb starts with 10 each of your first mills.
- Frequent Flyer and Long Tailwind: more paper planes, and longer Tailwinds.
- Bulk Buyer: with Mills set to Max, Best buy becomes Buy all, and the Upgrades tab gets a Buy all button too.
- 🤫 Quiet Climb (free after your first unfold): hides the pop-ups you've already seen. Anything new still gets the full celebration.
- Later in the game, the 🤖 Autobuyer and 🌙 Night Crew can buy mills and upgrades for you.
Paper styles change the look of your whole stack: ✨ Gold Leaf Paper and 🌌 Galaxy Paper, bought with gold, and 📄 Classic Paper, free. Styles are only for looks.
7. Unfolding and creases
Unfolding flattens your sheet and starts a fresh climb. It opens at fold 25.
- Resets: paper, mills, upgrades and folds.
- You keep: creases, gold, cranes, gold perks and achievements.
In return you get creases ✦. Each crease makes all your paper 10% faster, forever. The more layers your stack has when you unfold, the more creases it presses into. The Unfold tab always shows how many you'd get right now and how much faster that would make your paper. When to unfold is up to you. Tapping Unfold asks you to tap again, so it never happens by accident.
The Ranks tab keeps a chart of your last runs, one bar per climb.
8. Paper cranes
The crane is the most famous origami fold, and a Japanese legend says that anyone who folds 1,000 paper cranes is granted a wish. In the game, every fold you make adds one crane to your collection, and cranes are never lost, not even when you unfold.
Crane milestones at 10, 25, 50, 100, 250 and 500 each add +10% paper, forever. At 1,000 cranes, the wish is granted: all paper ×2, forever. Tap the 🕊️ counter at the top of the game to see where you are.
9. Paper planes and Tailwind
Every so often, a paper plane flies across the sky. Tap it to catch it. A plane brings one of these:
- A paper delivery: a pile of paper at once.
- ✈️ Tailwind: all paper ×5 for 30 seconds. Your paper number shimmers gold and a countdown ring shows the seconds left.
- Instant pressure: your next fold is at full pressure straight away.
- A free fold: a whole fold's worth of paper.
Rarer 🌟 golden planes bring bigger rewards: a free fold, a Golden Tailwind that's twice as strong and lasts twice as long, or a golden delivery. Frequent Flyer and the Orbital Tailwind upgrade bring planes more often, and Long Tailwind makes every Tailwind last longer. Planes caught count toward achievements and the ✈️ Planes leaderboard.
10. Away from the game
Your mills keep working while the game is closed. At first they run at half speed while you're away; the Round-the-Clock Mills upgrade makes it full speed. Time away counts for up to 24 hours.
With Auto-Fold switched on, it keeps folding at full pressure while you're gone, so you can come back higher, with new landmarks, gold and cranes. When you return, the Welcome back card adds it all up: paper, folds, cranes, gold, the landmarks you passed and how much your stack grew. Tap Collect to bank it.
11. Stats, achievements and the leaderboard
The Stats tab holds four things:
- Share buttons for your height and your achievements.
- Achievements: more than 70 of them, each paying gold, with progress bars. Some are secret and stay locked until you earn them. See the achievements page.
- The field guide of landmarks and facts.
- Stats: folds this climb, your best height and farthest landmark, days played and your day streak, your full-pressure streak, cranes, creases, planes caught, gold earned and every bonus you have right now.
The Ranks 🏆 tab has five live leaderboards: 📏 Height (your highest fold), 📅 Today (today's highest climb), ⚡ Speed (the fastest climb to the edge of the universe), 🕊️ Cranes and ✈️ Planes. Every player gets a name and player number, and you can rename yourself and pick an emoji there.
12. Settings worth knowing
- Sound and music: separate switches and volumes, and four soundtracks: Ambient, Lo-fi, Music box and Voyager. The game works fine with sound off.
- Paper chimes: a soft sound when sheets land on your stack.
- Graphics · Battery saver: Auto, High, Medium or Low. Auto lowers the effects by itself if the game runs slowly.
- Theme (light or dark) and Units (feet and miles, or meters and kilometers).
- Tips & hints and Update notices can be switched off.
- Account: your progress saves in your browser and in the cloud. Add your email to play the same save on another device.
- World map: every world, and how far you've come. World 1 is the world where you keep pushing higher.
13. The edge of the universe, and beyond
At fold 102, your stack reaches the edge of the observable universe, about 46.5 billion light-years away. It's World 1's first big goal, and it gets a celebration: fireworks, a card with your climb's stats and your place on the live "fastest to the edge" board, and the world map.
But World 1 doesn't quite end there. Past the edge:
- 🛰️ Orbiters appear in the Mills tab: a new kind of mill that circles your stack.
- Something is still out there. The field guide says so, and the rest is for you to find.
- A locked card for the 📐 Crease Pattern Studio appears in the Unfold tab. Read more about it on the origami page.
Reaching the edge also opens 🌲 World 2, the Grove, on the world map: a forest you run with a crew of woodcutters, haulers, planters and foragers. As it grows, a green Grove orbiter in World 1's sky makes every orbiter work harder, so time spent in the Grove helps your climb here. The Grove page explains how it works.
World 1 is the world where you keep pushing higher, and the bonuses you earn in every other world help your climb here.
More questions? See the FAQ, or read how many times you can really fold a piece of paper.