Slipstream puts you on a three-lane desert highway at dusk with a thirsty car and a tank that empties the whole time you drive. Fuel tankers cruise in the left and right lanes, and the only way to stay on the road is to tuck in close behind one and ride its slipstream. One tap on the left or right half of the screen moves you one lane that way, so the whole game is played with a single finger. While you are drafting, the tank refills quickly and every half-second pays points, but the tanker's wake is building behind it, and the ring on its tail shows how close it is to throwing you off the line.
Watch the wake ring. It fills from green to amber, then into the gold band, then red. Pull back into the centre lane while it is gold and you score a gold peel: a bonus, plus one more step on a multiplier that climbs as high as twelve times and boosts every drafting point after it. Peel early and you are safe but earn nothing extra. Stay until the ring closes and the wake buffets you sideways, halves the multiplier and dumps a third of your fuel. Hold on until the ring is nearly closed and the peel is perfect, worth two multiplier steps at once. Long tankers, marked with a gold rate tag, build their wake faster but pay more for every second you sit behind them. Wakes cool slowly once you leave, so after a long draft on one side the fresh tanker on the other side is usually the better hop, unless your fuel is so low that any draft will do. Tankers also pull away now and then and a new one rolls in, so you can never simply bounce between the same two. When the fuel bar runs dry the run ends.
After about fifteen seconds the tankers start braking. Their tail lights flash and a warning appears over the wake ring, and a moment later the tanker stands on the brakes and drops back toward you. Anyone still tucked in behind it slams into the tank, loses fuel and loses the combo. Now each draft means watching two signals, the wake and the brake lights, and sometimes the right play is to bail out before the gold band. Chill, Normal and Hard change how fast the wake builds, how hungry the engine is and how much warning the brake lights give, but the opening stretch is forgiving in all three. For more one-finger driving, try Dash, Slalom or Pitlane.