Zerdly

Endless Highway Racer

Thread through flowing traffic for distance, near-misses and escalating speed. 4 lanes, 5 modes including a daily three-minute run, and a road that never ends.

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The thing that catches everybody

A near miss is not “pass close”. It is “pass close just after you moved”. The bonus only pays if you changed lane in the 3 seconds before the car went by.

That sounds fussy until you notice you are always faster than the traffic. A driver who never touches the wheel still passes cars closely all day — measured over a hundred and twenty runs, about eleven of them each time. Paying for that would be paying twice for the same distance, because the distance is already the score.

So the bonus rewards the one thing distance does not: choosing to go through a gap instead of sitting behind it. It is worth roughly 150 metres, and each vehicle pays once.

How to play

The left and right arrows — or A and D — move you one lane per tap. Up and down, or W and S, are the accelerator and the brake, and those are held. On a phone the lane buttons sit in one lower corner and the pedals in the other, and you can swap them over.

Your score is the distance you cover, counting up continuously, plus the near-miss bonus. The speed limit rises as you go and so does the traffic, so a long run gets harder on both counts at once.

Nothing here is unavoidable

Every vehicle is going your way and slower than you are, and faster than the slowest you are ever forced to go. That combination means a full-width block of traffic is never fatal — you slow down and follow it until a gap opens.

Nothing is ever placed inside the distance you would need to stop for it. Once you are moving, traffic appears at the edge of sight — about 220 metres — and the cars already on the road when a run starts sit 100 metres off, against a 67-metre stopping distance at the opening limit. Flat out, braking down to the slowest traffic takes about 160 metres at 9 m/s². Every crash in this game is a lane you chose to be in.

Modes

Endless
Drive as far as you can. Three knocks and the run is over.
One Life
A single contact ends it. The traffic starts thinner to compensate.
Traffic Rush
Heavy traffic from the first metre, and it never thins out.
Night Run
Headlights only: you see barely half the road ahead.
Daily 3-Minute
The same three minutes of road for everyone, all day.

Tips

  • Move early. The lane with the most clear road in front of it is worth taking before you need it — a driver that waits until its own lane closes has already run out of choices.
  • Braking is not losing. You cover almost exactly the same distance whether you thread aggressively or follow patiently — so the risk is only worth taking for the bonus.
  • In One Life, take nothing. The bonus is never worth a run.
  • At night, slow down before you think you need to. Less road visible means less time to decide, not less traffic.

Privacy and local play

Everything runs in your browser. There is no sign-in, no server and no gameplay API: your bests, your daily history and your settings are stored on this device only, under a key belonging to this game alone, and clearing them does not touch anything else on Zerdly.

Questions

How do near misses actually work?
A near miss pays about 150 metres, and it only counts if you changed lane within 3 seconds before it. Simply driving past a car closely earns nothing, and that is deliberate: you are always faster than the traffic, so passing cars is what driving down the road is. A bonus for that would pay you twice for the same distance. Each vehicle also pays once, so weaving alongside the same car does not keep paying.
Can the traffic ever trap me?
No, and that is a property of the game rather than a promise. Every vehicle is going your way and slower than you are — every one of them runs at 50 to 75% of whatever the current limit is, which at the top limit is 112 to 167 km/h — and faster than the slowest you are ever forced to go. So a wall of traffic is never fatal: you slow down and follow it. And nothing is ever placed inside the distance you would need to stop for it: once you are under way traffic appears at the edge of sight, about 220 metres off, and even the cars that are already there when a run begins sit 100 metres away against a 67-metre stopping distance at the opening limit. Flat out, stopping to match the slowest traffic takes about 160 metres.
Does it get faster, or just busier?
Both. The speed limit climbs from the opening pace to about 223 km/h over the first 9.0 km, and the traffic gets denser over the same distance. Each mode has its own density curve, so Traffic Rush is heavy from the first metre and One Life starts thinner to make up for having no second chance.
What makes Night Run different from a dark palette?
Your sight distance. In daylight you can read about 220 metres of road; at night it is about 99. That changes what you can plan rather than what you can see prettily, which is why it is a separate mode and not a colour option.
Is the Daily the same for everyone?
Yes. The three minutes of road are seeded from the UTC date and nothing else, so two people on opposite sides of the world drive the same traffic on the same day. Your best run of the day is the one kept.
Why do I change lane a whole lane at a time?
Because a four-lane road is four positions, not a continuum. One tap moves you one lane; holding the key does not slide you across the carriageway. The car is still a real width, and a lane change takes real time — which is what makes threading a gap a decision rather than a reflex.
Does pausing help me?
It stops the clock, so it earns you nothing: the distance you score is the distance the car actually covered. A hidden tab pauses automatically, and the catch-up is capped so a tab left open for an hour cannot come back owing you kilometres.
Does reduced motion make it easier?
No. It removes the impact shake and calms the effects, and it changes no rule, no score and no timing. The route also follows your operating system's reduced-motion setting automatically.
Why is there no leaderboard?
There is no server and no account, so there is nobody to compare you with. Your bests, your daily history and your settings live in this browser and nowhere else.

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