Margin Racers

A racing game drawn with a blue ballpoint pen in a school notebook. The road, the cottages, the ferris wheel and your rival are doodles in the margins; the engine roars over cheerful school tunes, and the lesson goes on without you.

Beat the AI rival to the finish. It gets faster with every win: the first races are a single lap, later ones are three. Along the way a tractor and a school bus block the road, geese wander across it, the geography teacher hurls her globe at anyone slacking off, and the PE teacher pops open manholes right in front of you.

• Chase-camera racing on a 5 mm grid: the notebook page scrolls under your car
• Three levels: summer in the village, a lunch break downtown, an amusement park dash
• Road events: overtake a tractor and a school bus, brake for geese, dodge bumper cars, balls and roadworks
• Teachers on the roadside: a globe to the roof costs you speed, an open manhole costs more
• Original school-style music for every level, an engine that answers the throttle, a school bell for the start
• Plays on phones: one-finger steering below the track, steering assist, a sensitivity slider
• English and Russian interface (switch in the page header)

Controls: arrows or W A S D to drive, ↑ gas, ↓ brake and reverse, Space pauses, R restarts, Enter starts the race. On phones: drag one finger up to accelerate, down to brake and reverse, left and right to steer; the further up, the faster.

Made in a browser with a canvas and the Web Audio API. Music is original, made for the game.