Coast Road

A clay car with the throttle wide open, a winding road drawn the old arcade way, and a clock that only checkpoints can stop. Coast Road is a driving game in the sprite-scaled pseudo-3D style: the road rises and falls and bends toward the horizon, and it runs in any browser without 3D hardware.

What it is

Your car accelerates on its own. You steer, you boost, and you pull the handbrake for the tightest bends. The road's curves throw the car toward the verge, the verge slows it, the clay scenery spins it round, and the slower clay traffic bumps it off line. Checkpoints top the clock up; let it run out and the run is over.

Every run is five stages across a continent, chosen at a fork at the end of each: from the Coast to Pine Ridge or the Red Flats, on to Rock Angeles, the Eagle's Nest or Rock Vegas, then New Clay York, Londinium, Venezia or Roma, and at last the Harbour at Dusk, Moskva, the Kiln Works or the Great Wall. Sixteen roads to the far side. A chart on the opening card shows them all, and lights the one you took when the run ends. Everything along the way is built of the same stone-age clay as the car: the skyscrapers are stacked stone, the marquees are glowing clay bulbs, the gondolas are hollowed logs.

How to play

Brake into a bend by lifting off the boost and steer early, before the road leans; a car that is already sliding will not turn. Keep off the verge. A sign before each fork names both ways, so pick your road before the split. Every stage has two long sweepers: hold the handbrake and steer into one at speed and the car drifts round it, tail out and tyres squealing. A drift holds the line, costs a little speed and fills the boost.

Controls

Rated E (everyone). Runs without WebGL.

Play Coast Road (free, in the browser; back to all games)