Hover Racer

High-speed anti-gravity racing through luminous original Zerdly courses with boost management. 8 courses, three craft, an Elimination mode that cuts the last craft every 18 seconds, and a daily course that is the same for everybody.

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The thing that catches everybody

Boost is not a button you hold. It is a budget you place. A full tank is about 3.5 seconds, and where you spend it changes the lap more than how much of it you spend.

Six bots were given the same budget and told to spend it in different places. Spending on the way out of a corner beat spending it indiscriminately on every course; on the course built round long straights, spending it there beat both. And spending it on the way into a corner was worst of all — boost ignores the air brake, so the extra speed has to be given back before the corner will take you.

Which policy wins depends on the course, and that is the game.

How to play

Arrows or WASD steer and thrust, the down key is the air brake, and space is the boost. On a phone the pads sit in the lower corners with the boost as the largest target, under the thumb that is not steering.

Choose a mode, a course and a craft, and start. Gates must be crossed in order; the one you owe is drawn heavier than the rest. The bar under the craft is the tank, and it reads in seconds because seconds are what you are deciding about.

Rules and controls

The craft points where you steer and travels where its momentum takes it. Nothing bites; the skirts drag.
Gates count only in order and only the right way round. A missed gate holds the lap open until you have been back through it.
Walls drain about 27% of your speed and only when you are moving into one. They never stop you dead and they are never a time penalty.
Boost spends the tank while held and does nothing when it is empty. It ignores the air brake.
Boost pads are worth about 1.5 seconds each and sit off the fast line. Flying clean trickles a little back.
The course is 42 metres wide, wall to wall, and the walls you can see are the walls the game tests against — they are the same geometry, not a picture of it.

Modes

Quick Race — a field of rivals over the course's own lap count. Finish by place.
Time Trial — alone against the clock, with your own saved ghost to chase. Its best lap is kept separately from Quick Race, because a lap set in traffic is a different lap: traffic both blocks and tows.
Elimination — the craft in last place is knocked out every 18 seconds until one is left, with position counted continuously rather than at the line.
Daily Course — a course generated from today's UTC date, the same for everybody, with one recorded attempt.

Tips

Spend the tank leaving a corner, not arriving at one. It is the single biggest difference between a quick lap and a slow one.
Lift before you turn. Anything above 201 metres of radius is effectively a straight to this craft, and anything below it needs speed taken out first.
A boost pad is a fork, not a freebie: it is off the fast line, so taking it costs you the line. On a course where you have nowhere to spend the tank, leave it.
Listen for the boost thinning. The layer fades as the tank empties, which tells you you are about to run dry without looking away from the corner.
In Elimination, the axe falls on a clock rather than at the line. Being last for two seconds at the wrong moment costs the race.
The three craft are genuinely different. On the open courses the fast one wins; on the tightest one it does not.

Privacy and local play

Everything runs in your browser. Your best laps, ghosts, daily history and settings are kept in this browser's local storage and are never sent anywhere — there is no account, no server and no leaderboard. The courses are built on your own device and the turbine note is synthesised there rather than downloaded. There is a button on the result to clear the saved ghosts on their own, and one under the game that deletes this game's stored data and touches nothing else on Zerdly.

Frequently asked questions

Why do I keep sliding into the outside wall?: Because a hover craft has no wheels. It points where you steer and travels where its momentum takes it, and the gap between the two grows with speed: the skirts can pull about 46.8 metres per second squared sideways, which at 349 km/h is a turning circle of 201 metres. Any corner tighter than that has to be taken slower. Lift, turn, then go.
When should I spend the boost?: On the way out of a corner, or down a long straight — and this is measured rather than asserted. Six bots were given the same budget in seconds and told to spend it in different places; spending on corner exits beat spending indiscriminately on every course, and on the course built round long straights spending there beat both. Spending it on the way into a corner was worst of all, because the extra speed has to be given back before the corner will take you.
Why does holding boost into a corner feel like the brakes stopped working?: Because they have, partly. Boost is a separate thruster and it ignores the air brake, so holding both fights itself. That is deliberate: it is what makes the tank a decision rather than a button you hold for the whole race.
Where does the boost come from?: A full tank is about 3.5 seconds. Boost pads are worth about 1.5 seconds each and they sit off the fast line on purpose — taking one costs you the line, which is the whole point. Flying clean, without touching a wall, trickles a little back, about a second a lap. It is a top-up, not a refill.
What happens when I hit a wall?: You lose about 27% of your speed and keep going — walls drain rather than stop, and only when you are actually moving into one rather than sliding along it, so you can gather the craft up against a wall instead of being pinned to it. Contacts are reported on the result board but they are not a penalty; losing the speed is the penalty.
I flew through the line and the lap did not count. Why?: Because a lap is a sequence of gates taken in order, the right way round, not a line crossed. If you missed one, the game is still waiting for that one — go back through it and the lap completes. The gate you owe is drawn heavier than the rest.
How does Elimination decide who is last?: By metres along the race, counted continuously, and the craft in last place is knocked out every 18 seconds until one is left. It is not decided at the line: a gate count would be far too coarse to say who is last, and being knocked out by a rounding error is not a game.
Are the courses the same every time?: Yes. The 8 courses are fixed and identical for everybody, because a best lap is meaningless on a course that changes when it loads. They are ordered from the most open to the tightest: the first spends about two thirds of a lap flat out and the last barely a quarter. The Daily Course is generated instead, from the UTC date alone.
Is the Daily Course the same for everyone?: Yes — the course, its boost pads and the rival field are all seeded from the UTC date and nothing else, so two people on opposite sides of the world race the same course on the same day. One attempt is recorded. Everything else is seeded on your own device.
Are the three craft actually different?: Yes, and the trade is arithmetic rather than flavour: the quickest tops out near 349 km/h and turns least, the tightest turns hardest and is slowest in a straight line. On an open course the fast one wins; on the tightest one it does not. The boosted top speeds reach about 449 km/h.
Why is my lap sometimes not recorded?: Because the tab was hidden part-way through. A hidden tab cannot run the simulation, so the clock counted time the craft did not fly; the catch-up is capped so the browser does not freeze, and the run is marked as not recordable rather than quietly kept.
Does the calm setting make it easier?: No. It removes the camera shake and the glow and shortens the boost trail, and it changes no rule, no score and no timing. The same is true of the reduced-motion setting in your operating system, which the route follows automatically.
Why is there no leaderboard?: There is no server and no account, so there is nobody to compare you with. Your best laps, ghosts, daily history and settings live in this browser and nowhere else, and the button under the game deletes all of them without touching anything else on Zerdly.