Race Track
- Race Track (1978 on Commodore PET/CBM)
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Race Track (1980 on Commodore PET/CBM)
Description
Race Track is an interesting conversion of a simple pen & paper game. It could best be described as a "strategic turn based racing simulation" -- not bad for such a simple game!
The game is played on a race track divided into small squares. Gameplay is simple: At each turn, you are moved by an amount of squares depending on your last move (your velocity or speed), which you can modify by selecting one of the neighboring squares of the position where you'd land by not doing anything.
This may sound complicated, but it is actually quite simple and is a quite realistic physical modelling of braking, accelerating and steering. The difficulty is to find the right speed to take the curves. If you're too fast, you won't be able to brake in time -- either you'll crash of you'll have to brake until your not moving anymore, which costs time, so you should think in advance about when to accelerate.
There are also other difficulties like oil slicks which make you unable to modify the speed of your vehicle, or pit stops where you will have to stop before continuing the race.
The game offers three predefined race tracks and an editor to create your own tracks. There are also different playing modes, you can race the clock, trying to beat the "champion" of the track (the player who used the least number of turns), or you can race the champion himself (you see his traces and try to beat him), or you can race against a friend in a two-player mode.
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Credits (Windows 16-bit version)
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Trivia
The pen & paper game was described in Martin Gardner's book Knotted Doughnuts and Other Mathematical Experiments, where it is presented as a "truly remarkable simulation of auto racing".
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Related Sites +
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Race Track for Windows
The game's creator P.S. Neeley's Race Track page, where you can download the shareware version.
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Contributors to this Entry
Game added by General Error.
Windows 16-bit added by Patrick Bregger.
Game added October 12, 2006. Last modified February 13, 2023.