Stellar Highway

About the game

A character rolls forward all by itself over a night-time city, and there is no ground. You make it. Hold the mouse button and drag, and a line appears under the character that it can roll on, as solid as a floor. Draw a slope down and it picks up speed; draw one up and it slows. If you stop drawing and there is nothing under it, it falls and the run is over.

Between you and the horizon there is a skyline of obstacles: rooftops you can roll over but not into, bat walls, dragons, airships and missiles that home in on you. Stars hang along the safe path and are the money of the game: spend them in the shop to unlock new characters. Some rooftops carry power-ups (a jetpack, an umbrella, a lowrider, a clone of yourself, a rock guitar), and the defensive ones double as a second chance: a hit uses the power-up up and gives you a few seconds of invincibility instead of ending the run.

There are three modes. Endless is the classic one, one obstacle after another. Missiles is a survival mode with waves of missiles that chase you, and a missile that locks on can be blown up by steering it into a line you drew. Chaos throws several things at once and keeps speeding up. The game keeps your stars, your unlocked characters and your best score for each mode in your browser, and it can record your runs as replays that you can watch from the settings panel.

Playing it here

Click Play and wait for the game to load (about 25 MB, downloaded only when you press the button). A short studio intro plays first. Then pick a mode in the menu and press Enter, or click the start button. The game was made for touch screens; with a mouse it plays the same way, and on a phone or tablet you simply drag your finger.

Controls

Tips

Keep the line ahead. Draw a little in front of the character, not under it, so the ground is there when it arrives.

Use the hills. Speed is momentum: roll down a long slope to build it and draw a rise before an obstacle to slow down in time. You can even roll backwards to retime a tricky wall.

Roofs are floors, walls are not. You can ride on top of a building, but hitting its side is the end of the run.

Follow the stars. They are laid along the safe path, and the danger arrows and beeps warn you about what is coming.

Turn on assist draw. In the settings, it lifts the line above the pointer so your hand does not cover the action.

FAQ

Does it work on a phone? Yes, the game was made for touch. Drag a finger on the screen.

Is my progress saved? Yes, in your browser: stars, unlocked characters, scores and settings. Clearing the site data erases them.

Can I save replays? Yes. The settings panel lists them so you can watch, rename or delete them. The button that opens the replay folder is hidden in this version, because a browser has no folder to open.

Is it free to share? Yes. The code and the art are under the GNU GPL v3, and the source of this build is linked from this page.

Credits and licence

Stellar Highway was made by Safwan Murad (Stellar Stones): game design, art and music. It is released under the GNU General Public License, version 3. The movement code is adapted from Godot-Sonic-Physics by marmitoTH (Lucas Rodrigues), MIT No Attribution. The font is Press Start 2P (The Press Start 2P Project Authors), under the SIL Open Font License 1.1. It runs on Godot Engine 4.7 (MIT). The missile explosion animation of the original credits is not part of this version; the frames you see were drawn by FredyGames for this build and released to the public domain. The other changes are small (the Compatibility renderer, a hidden folder button, and the removal of links to an app store), and the patch, the full source of this build and the licence texts are linked from this page.