FOLLOW THE QUIET.

Finding a faster line

Brake sufficiently before a corner, then accelerate once the car is pointing toward the exit. If the car begins to slide, easing the input and waiting for the tires to regain grip is usually faster than making a large correction.

Comfort

During play, the camera limits large background movement and keeps the area around the car easy to read. It has a wide positional dead zone that keeps the scenery still until the car approaches the edge of the view. The game also supports short screens, touch controls, and the OS reduced-motion setting; when reduced effects are enabled, the camera repositions immediately instead of interpolating continuously.

Routes and cars in detail

The four routes are KIRISAME PASS (82% gravel, 6.8 km, +384 m elevation, grade B), OCHRE FIELDS (64% dirt, 7.4 km, +126 m elevation, grade C), SHIOSAI COAST (71% tarmac, 8.1 km, +242 m elevation, grade A), and HAKUGIN LINE (90% snow, 5.9 km, +512 m elevation, grade S). Each route has five checkpoints, and crossing one shows the signed split-time difference against the saved ghost. The five cars range widely in output and weight, from a 142 PS, 890 kg classic RWD to a 612 PS, 1,810 kg dual-EV prototype, and surface friction also differs by route, so the same car can feel different from course to course.

Setup and medals

Each car can be tuned individually across nine items: engine map, final drive, differential lock, suspension firmness, brake bias, steering rate, transmission (auto/manual), traction control (sport/off/full), and ABS (on/off). The BALANCED, LOOSE GRAVEL, DRY TARMAC, and FRESH SNOW presets can also be applied at once. The SETUP screen shows top speed, acceleration time, and weight alongside a five-axis radar chart of speed, acceleration, grip, stability, and rough-road resistance, so you can check the effect of your tuning both as numbers and as a shape. Each route has GOLD, SILVER, and BRONZE time targets; the GOLD time is the route's base target multiplied by a factor of 0.90-1.20 derived from the selected car's base performance score, SILVER is 108% of GOLD, and BRONZE is 118%. The best medal on each route contributes 1 (BRONZE), 2 (SILVER), or 3 (GOLD) points to the TRACE SCORE, for a total of 0-12 points across the four routes.

Ghosts and save data

When you set a new personal best, that run is recorded as a ghost at 10 Hz and is then overlaid on later attempts for the same route and car. Ghost storage is capped at 12 route/car records, each holding up to 18,000 samples. The selected car and route, per-car SETUP, body color, personal-best times, ghosts, earned medals, the mute, ghost-display, and reduced-effects preferences, and whether the onboarding brief has been viewed are stored under the key windtrace.save.v1 in the browser's localStorage and are never sent to a server. Deleting this site's data in your browser resets all of it.

First-time guide

The first time you open the game, a one-time "DRIVING BRIEF" overlay appears, listing the controls (W/↑ throttle, S/↓ brake/reverse, A D / ← → steer, SPACE handbrake, R recover to checkpoint, ESC / P pause) alongside toggles for the best-ghost display and reduced effects. Whether you have seen this brief is also stored as part of your save data.

FAQ

Can I play with touch controls? Yes, on-screen buttons for steering, handbrake, brake, and throttle appear at the bottom of the screen.
How do I reset my records? Deleting this site's data (site data/cookies) from your browser settings resets the selected car, SETUP, best times, ghosts, and medals.
What if the game feels heavy? Enabling your OS's reduced-motion setting simplifies camera follow and effects.
What if I go off course? Press R to recover near the last checkpoint you passed.
Is it free to play? Yes. No account is required, and it runs entirely in your browser.

Related pages

You can also reach the game from the WINDTRACE top page, and read a project overview on the WorksHub project page.

Game flow and results

The flow is: choose a car and SETUP on the ATLAS menu and GARAGE/SETUP screens, go through a 3-second countdown into the TIME TRIAL, and see the RESULT screen before returning to the menu. RESULT shows the final time, how many of the five checkpoints were reached, the top speed reached during the run, and the total time spent off the road, and indicates when a personal best has been set.

Supported environment

The game runs in current desktop and mobile browsers and supports both keyboard and touch input. To limit rendering load on mobile devices, the canvas's device pixel ratio is capped at 1.5x. No account registration or additional installation is needed, and it is free to play.

Technical notes

WINDTRACE uses no external images, fonts, or audio files; the course terrain, scenery, and cars are all generated in code and drawn on a Canvas. Engine sound and other audio are synthesized with Web Audio oscillators rather than loaded from sound files. No build step or server is required, the game runs by opening index.html directly in a browser.

Updates

Vehicle dynamics, UI, accessibility, and performance will continue to improve after release. The implementation is organized as classic JavaScript modules under a single window.WindtraceRuntime namespace, with no external runtime dependency. The change history and source code are available on GitHub.