Drift Circuit

The nose is not the direction you are going

Drift Circuit is three laps against a clock, and the clock does not care how brave a corner looked. The car has weight: it accelerates along its nose but keeps its momentum wherever it was pointing, so the moment you ask it to turn at speed the rear tyres start asking questions. Brake early, aim the nose, then add power.

Arrows or W A S D do everything. Up and Down are throttle and brake, and holding Down once you have stopped puts the car into reverse, which is the honest way out of a wall. Left and Right steer, but how much they steer depends on how fast you are moving.

Charge the slide, then throw it away

Hold Space and two things happen at once. The tyres let go sideways, so the nose swings further into the corner than the car is really travelling, and it settles at somewhere between 25 and 30 degrees of slip. Every degree of that slip, multiplied by your speed, is banked as boost charge. Straight-line twitching earns nothing.

A long sweeper puts roughly 40 into the meter, which tops out at 100. Let go of Space and the car spends whatever is in there, but only if at least 30 is banked. A full 100 fires just under two seconds of extra thrust and lifts the top speed by about a third.

Where each circuit actually bites

Sunset Loop is the teaching track: wide, flowing, and quick everywhere. Its bottom straight runs about 830 units from the last corner exit to the first turn-in, the only place a full boost pays. The tightest point is the last left onto that straight, a radius of about 164 that at full speed you cannot make. Back off to roughly 330 and it is flat.

Harbour Bend rewards a different habit. The kink just after the top-right is the sharpest corner of the three at about 144, and it arrives at the end of a fast run, so the instinct to stay on the throttle is exactly wrong. The two long corners after it are where sliding genuinely beats grip driving, because the exit opens onto a straight.

Terminal Three is the one that punishes a full meter. The left-hand bend at the far side tightens to a radius of 81, barely more than a car and a half, and it comes straight after a downhill run. Arrive with a hundred banked and you will spend it on the straight before the bend instead of after.

What the clock is counting, and what the medals want

The chips along the top show your running time, your best total on this circuit, which lap you are on, and your last lap. The total is the headline: three laps, one number, lower is better. Each circuit carries a gold, silver and bronze time, printed on the start panel and on the results. Sunset Loop asks 37.00 for gold, Harbour Bend 40.00, Terminal Three 42.00, with bronze at a deliberately generous 57, 62 and 65.

Off the road you lose about two thirds of your top speed and the tyres drag hard, so a shortcut across the inside of a corner costs more than it saves. The barrier is not lethal, only expensive: a square hit scrubs off more than half your speed.

Do I have to use the drift key at all?

You can post a respectable bronze on Sunset Loop without ever touching Space. The tighter circuits are where grip driving runs out, because full grip cannot rotate the car faster than its turning circle allows, while a sliding car can aim its nose almost wherever it likes.

Why did the boost not fire when I let go?

There was less than 30 in the meter. The charge only spends itself when you release the drift key with at least 30 banked, so a quick tap through a corner does nothing and the game quietly keeps what little you made. Tapping Space and releasing straight away is the usual way people lose one.

How long does a race actually take?

Three laps of Sunset Loop is about forty seconds if you are quick, and Terminal Three is closer to fifty. The clock runs from the moment the panel closes to the moment you cross the line for the third time, so a bad first lap is worth restarting rather than driving out.

Can I steer this with the mouse?

No, and there is no on-screen throttle either. The whole game answers to the arrow keys or W A S D, which means every player is driving exactly the same car with exactly the same steering curve. That is the point of a time trial, and it is why the times on the results panel mean something.

What happens if I hit a wall or drive on the grass?

Neither one ends the run, because there is no damage in this game. The grass takes about two thirds of your top speed away for as long as you are on it and drags at the car constantly, while a square hit on a barrier throws away more than half of whatever speed you arrived with.

Why the score here is a clock and not a tally

I built this one because a lap time is the only score in racing that nobody argues with. There are no points for style, so every choice comes down to whether it makes the number smaller. The boost meter is the only thing that looks like a reward, and it is really a loan: you take the corner slower to bank it, and only get the speed back if the straight afterwards is long enough.