Traffic Escape DS

About the game

Traffic Escape DS is a sliding-block puzzle about a traffic jam. The board is a grid of six by six squares seen from above and filled with cars, buses and trucks. Each vehicle can only slide back and forth along the way it points, and your red car has to reach the exit on the right side. Clear a path by moving the others out of the way, in as few moves and as little time as you can.

The vehicles are textured 3D models drawn by the DS hardware, with shadows, and the top screen shows the level, the running time and your best time. There are twenty hand-made levels of growing difficulty, chosen from a level screen, and a custom-level option that reads files from an SD card.

Playing it here

This is a homebrew game made for the Nintendo DS: a new game by an independent developer, not a commercial release. It runs here in the DeSmuME emulator and needs no Nintendo BIOS or firmware. Both screens appear on the page, one above the other (side by side in a wide window). The bottom screen is the touch screen where the whole game is played: tap a level number, then press on a vehicle and drag it with the mouse or a finger.

Click Play and tap a level. Your best times are written to an SD card that the emulator simulates, and your browser stores them for the next visit. The online levels button needs Wi-Fi, which the emulator does not have, so it does nothing here. F2 saves the emulator state and F4 loads it.

Controls

On a phone or tablet the DS buttons appear on screen, under the two screens (or on the sides, with the device lying down), and the bottom screen works as the touch screen.

Tips

Start from the exit. Look at what blocks the red car's lane and work backwards: which vehicle has to move, and what blocks that one in turn.

Free the long vehicles first. Trucks and buses cover more squares and have less room to move, so freeing them early tends to open the rest.

Use the shortest route. Your time is recorded for each level, so once you solve it, try again to beat your best.

Credits and licence

Traffic Escape DS was made by Warioware64, who says the project was built with help from an AI coding assistant. The code is under the Apache License 2.0. The vehicle models are PSX Style Cars by GGBot (CC0), the font is by GGBotNet, the backgrounds are by Screaming Brain Studios (CC0), the music is "blossom" by chajamakesmusic (CC BY 4.0) and the sound effects are from the 400 Sounds Pack by Ci. The licence texts, the credits and the source are linked from this page.