TEMPO DRIFT

A racer whose road is the beat.

Every dash on the lane lines is one beat, and it lights up as you cross it. Change lanes on the beat and the song speeds up, and so does your car. Miss and it slows down. Chain it cleanly and you drive yourself into the fastest, hardest version of the road on purpose.

There is no note highway. The rhythm is the tarmac: the cream stripe across the road is a bar line, the chequered strip is a checkpoint, and every four dashes make a bar.

Six roads, six songs

• DAWN COAST, 104 BPM, 40 bars. A long road above the sea at first light, at the gentlest tempo of the six.
• PINE PASS, 112 BPM, 44 bars. Switchbacks in the mist, with hills rolling under the road.
• SALT FLATS, 120 BPM, 48 bars. The flattest road there is, with gentle bends and the shortest clock of the six.
• NIGHT HARBOUR, 126 BPM, 48 bars. Wet quayside, lamps in the water, and a dock road that will not stay straight.
• AUTUMN VALE, 132 BPM, 52 bars. Down through the orchards, everything gold, everything bending.
• STORM RIDGE, 140 BPM, 56 bars. The last ridge in weather, at a tempo the first road could not have survived.

What you play with

• Gates. A pink diamond is a tap. A pink bar is a hold. Chevrons across the road are a corner: lean into it on the beat and hold the drift through the pink kerbs, or the corner pushes you a lane wide.
• Surge. Three boost pads fill the tank and you surge: double score and wider timing.
• The garage. Shards bank from every run and buy GRIP, WINDOW, TANK and MAGNET, each one changing how the road already plays.
• Unlocks. Any medal opens the next road. Silver opens that road's REMIX at 20 BPM faster.
• Rivals. Three ghost cars, RUST, CHROME and HALO, drive the bronze, silver and gold pace. Fall behind a medal and its ghost pulls ahead of you on the road.

Checkpoints, not restarts

A crash sends you back to the last checkpoint: there is one every eight bars, and the first is the start line. The clock keeps running and each checkpoint adds time. Progress saves in your browser, including a road you leave part way.

Controls

Left and Right arrows or A and D to change lane. Space, Up or W for taps and holds. Escape or P to pause, M to mute. On a phone the game switches to a portrait layout with LEFT, TAP and RIGHT buttons.

The music follows you

The song in a run is synthesised live in your browser, beat by beat, so it can follow your tempo. Layers join as your chain grows. The menu theme and the sound effects are rendered from the same code. No AI audio.

Made with AI, said plainly: the code, the art and the text were made with AI tools and checked before release. The landscapes were generated as images and the car and roadside props as pixel art.

More free games from the studio

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