Status: Phase 2B — realism pass. Real-time 3D (hand-written WebGL):
sun shadow mapping, glossy clear-coat paint and glass with sky
reflections, smooth-shaded terrain and trees, procedural asphalt/grass
detail texture, animated reflective water, shader sky with sun glow, soft
clouds, smooth lofted car bodies with detailed wheels. One car, the
"Sunny Valley" loop (hills, banked corners, tunnel hill, bridge over a
lake), practice traffic, three touch control schemes, infinite nitro.
Phase 2C — fun & scoring: jump ramps with airtime, near-miss points,
collectible stars (rows + arcs over ramps), boost pads, knock-over cones,
drift points, a ×5 combo multiplier, pop-ups, confetti and trick sounds.
Points are banked (localStorage for now) for future unlocks.
Phase 2D — vehicle platform & garage: 12 vehicles across 9 families
(race, sports, muscle, hatch, jeep, SUV, pickup, monster truck, cab-over
cargo truck), each with its own handling and engine sound (8 engine
profiles incl. diesel with turbo whistle and air brakes). 3D turntable
garage: unlock with earned points, paint (body/accent/stripes), rims,
livery and ride height. All vehicle names are invented.
Phase 2E — tricks & Super Nitro: steer in the air to spin (360 / 720 /
1080), barrel-roll ramps, a mega ramp, corkscrews (roll + spin), always
wheels-down landings. Tricks fill a gold Super Nitro meter: tap the gold
button for a faster, free boost with a shockwave that bumps traffic aside.
Phase 2F — races & AI: 8-event career (race, knockout, time trial;
off-road, speed, monster and truck-only cups) unlocked with stars. 5 AI
opponents drive the same physics (jumps included), with difficulty levels
and gentle catch-up. Countdown, positions, final lap, results with stars
and points; loaner vehicles so no event is ever blocked.
Phase 2G — maps: five maps — Sunny Valley, Desert Canyon (sunset,
dust, mesas), Snowy Peaks (snowfall, slippery grip, snowmen), Night City
(night, rain, wet roads, lit towers, headlights and street-lamp pools) and
Tropical Coast (islands, sea to the horizon, palms). Map picker for free
drive; 12 career events spread across all maps.
Phase 2H — full roster & deep customisation: 53 vehicles (formula
racers, prototypes, wedge supercars, muscle, hot hatches, open-top jeeps,
luxury SUVs, lifted pickups, monster trucks with car/SUV/hatch bodies, box,
tanker, tipper and flatbed trucks). Body kits (spoilers, GT wings,
splitters, skirts, scoops/blowers, light bars, bull bars), 7 liveries,
window tints, neon underglow, and 4 performance upgrades × 5 levels.
Phase 3 — offline, badges, performance: a service worker caches the
whole game, so the installed app plays with no connection (updates download
in the background and apply on the next visit to the title screen).
26 badges with progress bars and point rewards. Graphics "Auto" (the new
default) watches real frame times while driving and steps High → Medium →
Low on devices that can't keep up.
Phase 4A — menus for young children: "Who's playing?" animal profiles
(each child has their own cars, stars and badges; an older save becomes
🦊's, and more players are added behind the grown-up lock). Home is three picture buttons — ▶ Play (straight into the
next race), 🗺️ Drive (picture map cards) and 🚗 Garage (icon tabs). Pause
and results are icon-only. Settings, the full race list and player
management sit behind a grown-up lock (a two-digit sum). "Not yet" and
"bought" sounds replace text-only feedback.
Phase 4B — Little Driver: per-player driving help, on by default and
switchable by grown-ups. Corners push the car outward less, the road edge
gently steers it back, and a car stuck off the road or going nowhere is
rescued (🛟) after 2.5 s. ▶ Play skips knockout races and AI rivals drop
one difficulty level.
Phase 4C — delight without reading: silly roof toppers (👑 🦆 🦄 🦈,
free, in the garage's ✨ tab); a 📯 HONK button (or H) that makes traffic
ahead move over and nearby animals jump; 15 hidden animals, three per map
(some in tunnels and on bridges), found by driving past them and collected
in a sticker book on the badges screen; fireworks, a fanfare, a podium with
the player's animal and confetti for top-three finishes.
Phase 5 — looks and smashing: wheel openings are cut as exact arches
(dark liner, trim lip), fender bulges blend into the body, spoilers and
roof rails rest on the real roof, plus softly darker lower panels and door
shut lines. Nitro (trail, flames, sparkles, button ring) glows in the
car's own colour instead of a rainbow. Each map scatters smashable props
on its verges (hay bales, fences, crates, barrels, mailboxes, gifts, bins,
beach balls) that fly off for points and combos; trees, rocks and
buildings stay solid. In free drive Little Driver no longer pulls the car
back onto the road, so children can roam and smash; races keep the pull.
Phase 6 — more vehicles: tractors with hay or log trailers, big rigs
towing box, tanker, log and car-carrier semi-trailers (trailers follow the
path of the hitch, so they swing through corners and never jack-knife),
motorbikes (scooter, dirt bike, sport bike, chopper) with a helmeted rider
that lean into turns and wheelie on nitro, buses (city, school,
double-decker, coach), a fire engine and a cement mixer. Each new type has
a garage filter chip and a badge.
Phase 7A — the island (open world, first step): a 🏝️ Island card in
🗺️ Drive opens a seeded island about 3 km across that you can drive
anywhere on. The landscape is built in 128 m chunks around the car as it
drives (one per frame, nearest first) and dropped when far away. Free
driving uses the same handling, nitro, Super Nitro, jumps and tricks as
the tracks; cresting hills at speed launches the car; driving into the sea
splashes and brings the car back to the last dry spot. Roads, areas,
props, landmarks and the explore map follow in 7B–7F; an endless world in
7G.
Phase 7B — areas and scenery: the island has meadows (with houses and
barns), forests, an eastern desert, snowy peaks and beaches, each with its
own ground colour and scenery placed from the seed (the same every time).
Trees, rocks and buildings are solid; hay bales, fences, crates, barrels,
gifts and beach balls fly off for points. Little Driver turns a wedged car
free, and the camera slides in rather than ending up inside a tree.
Phase 7C — roads: a winding ring road round the island and five roads
from the middle out to it, cut into the land (flat across, the ground
blending into the road bed, raised where they cross water), with edge and
centre lines. Roads are the fastest surface and stay clear of scenery; the
drive starts on one.
Phase 7D — things to find: a stunt park of six ramps beside the start,
kicker ramps along the ring road, a castle on a meadow hilltop, a
lighthouse with a cottage on the coast and windmills near the start. Five
island animals (bunny, owl, camel, penguin, crab) hide in their own areas;
driving up to one says hello and the first visit adds a sticker (the
sticker book has a new Island row). Honking makes nearby animals hop.
Phase 7E — island map: a small round map in the corner turns with the
car; land you have not driven near yet is under clouds, and the 🏠 on its
rim points the way home. Tap it for the whole island (the car waits) with
how much is uncovered, found animals, landmarks seen and a 🏠 button that
drives you straight home. Each player's map is saved separately; badges
for uncovering 25% and 80%.
Island fixes: after 15 s off the road, a big arrow at the top points to the
nearest road. Cacti, bushes, snowmen and beach umbrellas now knock over for
points (trees, rocks and buildings stay solid), and more smashable props
line the roads. Steering in the air over a dune is a trick again, not a
turn: the car lands heading the way it flew. Little Driver only steps in
when the car has really stopped moving, and turns it away from what blocks
it.
Phase 7F — flag races: four checkered start arches on the island's
roads (the first just ahead of the start). Driving through one starts a
solo race through gates to a finish arch; a pill shows gates and time, an
arrow and a ring on the map point to the next gate. Finishing always pays
points; a quick time earns up to 3 stars, judged against the vehicle's own
top speed so slow vehicles can get 3 too. Best stars are kept per player;
a 🏁 badge for finishing all four. Roads now hold the car over their
crests (ramps still launch it) so races are not lost flying off a bend.
Phase 7G — Big Land: a second open world with no coast: the same
landscape generator, broader hills, and an endless grid of winding roads
(about 620 m apart, built a piece at a time as you drive, with kicker
ramps). Roads follow the land smoothed in 2D, so crossings meet level and
grades stay drivable. The small map draws the land around the car as it
goes; a pill shows how far from home you are, the farthest is kept per
player, and there are badges for 2 km and 10 km. The renderer draws
relative to an origin that follows the camera in 1000 m steps (game
logic stays in exact 64-bit world coordinates), so nothing shimmers
hundreds of km out.
Phase 8 — engine sounds: each engine is modelled rather than buzzed:
every cylinder fires a pulse at its real point in the cycle, through the
exhaust's resonances and a muffler that opens with revs, plus intake
roar, whine (race gearbox, monster supercharger) and diesel knock. Uneven
firing gives the V8 its burble and the V-twin bike its beat. Eleven voices
(hatch, sports, muscle, race, jeep/SUV, pickup, monster, bike, bus, truck
with engine brake, tractor), small per-vehicle differences, and a
reversing beeper on buses, trucks and tractors. Runs in an AudioWorklet;
the old synth remains as a fallback.
Phase 9A — two new maps: 🍂 Autumn Woods (orange and red forest,
falling leaves, pumpkin patches, a tunnel and a covered bridge) and
🍭 Candy Land (lollipops, candy canes, gumdrops, gingerbread houses and
bridges over a chocolate river). Each has its own smashable props
(pumpkins; doughnuts and cupcakes), three new sticker animals (hedgehog,
squirrel, fawn; unicorn, teddy, bee) and a career race.
Phase 9B — two more maps: 🦖 Dino Valley (ferns and cycads, a
smoking volcano, dinosaur bones, falling ash and bridges over glowing
lava) and 🌕 Moon Base (grey moon dust under a starry sky, craters,
domes, rockets and radar dishes, and low gravity so every jump floats).
Props: dino eggs and bones; moon cheese. Stickers: T. rex, hatchling,
long-neck; alien, robot, space mouse. Career races "Dino Dash" and
"Moon Hop".
Any static server works; there is no build step. Tilt steering needs HTTPS
on real devices (use the Vercel deployment).
Real 3D with hand-written WebGL (no libraries): vertex-coloured geometry
generated in code — terrain, road, tunnels, bridges, trees, buildings and
cars — lit by a sun with a shadow map (High/Medium), sky-reflection
specular for paint/glass/water, and a tileable procedural detail texture. Static geometry is merged into chunks and culled by
distance/direction. The simulation is track-relative (distance along the
track + lateral offset), so physics stays simple and deterministic; it runs
at a fixed 120 Hz so handling is identical at any frame rate.
