Tic Star Racers

About the game

Tic Star Racers is a racing game set in open space. The circuits are lines of light floating among the stars, drawn in 3D behind your ship, and the race is three laps against seven other pilots, with your rank, the laps to go, the distance left and your speed always on screen.

Before each race you choose a ship. The Mosquito, the Skylark, the Falcon and the Ostrich differ in top speed, mass and acceleration, and the game draws an acceleration curve for each so you can compare them. The eight circuits are named after the planets, from Mercury to Neptune, and each has its own length and difficulty.

The main mode is the Grand Prix: four races in a row, with points for every finishing position and a final table at the end. You pick a league first, from the Space Chicks to the Space Champions, and the rivals get faster with every step up. Single Race lets you choose any circuit, and Time Trial puts you alone on the track against the clock.

Playing it here

Tic Star Racers was made for TIC-80, a fantasy console: an imaginary 1980s-style computer with a 240 by 136 screen and 16 colours, for which independent developers write new games. It runs here in the official TIC-80 web player. Click Play, choose a mode with the arrows and confirm with Z.

Your best time on each circuit is kept in the Records screen, saved in this browser. Grand Prix and Single Race can be played by two people on a split screen; the second player needs a second gamepad. Esc opens the TIC-80 menu. A gamepad works directly, and on touch screens an on-screen D-pad and buttons appear.

Controls

A few things worth knowing

Lift off before the bends. Holding Z all the way round is the quickest way to overshoot a corner. A tap of X before a sharp turn usually saves more time than it costs.

Try every ship. Each one has its own balance of top speed, mass and acceleration, and a ship that feels sluggish on one circuit can be the fastest on another. Time Trial is the place to find out.

Watch the map. The outline at the top of the screen shows the whole circuit and your position on it, so you can see the next corner coming.

Credits and licence

Tic Star Racers was created by deidara, who made the code, the ships, the circuits, the music and the sound effects. It is free software under the GNU General Public License, version 3. The cartridge holds the game's complete, readable JavaScript source, so the file served here is also its source code. It runs here in the TIC-80 web player (MIT licence). The licence text is linked from this page.