A 90s touge-inspired racer. Night downhill battles on Japanese mountain passes, drawn like it's 1998.
You drive a tired white hatchback with 131 horsepower. Almost everyone else on the mountain has more. You win on the brakes, the line and the gutter.
Two cars at the top of the pass. Lead, and you have to stay ahead. Chase, and you have to get past. Pick either on the menu.
Cross the finish first, or pull more than 250 m clear and the battle is over where you stand. Enter for a rematch, Backspace for the menu.
Drift is the core skill, not a style bonus. Tyres let go early and hold a slide, so a hairpin is a decision you make three corners before it.
A win pays by rival. Drifting always pays. The cash buys parts and, eventually, the next car. Your times, records and cars are saved to a profile.
Time attack any pass with a ghost of your best run, downhill or up, at night, dawn or dusk.
Three real Gunma roads under different names, each with its own corners, landmarks and a rival who owns it.
Tyres have temperature and wear, brakes fade downhill, and a keyboard driver gets grip-aware steering, ABS and a handbrake that slides.
Engine stages, turbo, LSD, aero, coilovers, anti-roll bars, brake bias and a dyno that keeps your last pull on the graph.
You are the mechanic. Look at a job and its actions list themselves. Parts arrive on a truck after dark and you fit them yourself.
Dents where you hit the guardrail, grime up the sills, oil that wants changing, tyres that go off. Put it right or pay for it on the pass.
Every engine, cricket and eurobeat note is synthesised live. Nine tracks, one per rival, and the last stretch jumps a key.
Each course is built after a real Gunma road: its hairpins, its lake, its landmarks. Race them downhill or up, at night, at dawn or at dusk.
The home mountain, after Mt. Haruna. A caldera lake at the summit, a volcanic cone behind the start line, and the famous stack of five hairpins halfway down.
After Mt. Akagi. A torii gate stands in the summit lake, birches line the upper road and a city spreads out below. Fast sweepers, then a run of esses into the waterfall hairpin.
After the Usui Pass. Short, narrow and walled in stone, with a numbered plate before every corner, as on the real road. A brick railway viaduct crosses the valley beside Bridge Hairpin.
Each win gets you a name and a place to find the next driver. Lose, and they tell you why. Every rival battles to their own song.
"Told you. Nobody passes me in the hairpins. Come back when the car's sorted."
Holds court at the lake car park. Boost from 3,500 rpm and he knows it. Nervous in the five hairpins.
♪ MIDNIGHT GUTTER RUN"You brake where the road tells you to. I brake where I want to."
Times her runs after midnight. You hear the rotary before you see it. Weak in the last hairpin.
♪ RED ROTARY HEART"You drive the corner. I drive the road after it. That's the whole secret."
An old white hatch with one yellow fog lamp. Comes down after the last bus. No weak corner, no mercy.
♪ LAST BUS LANTERNYou are the mechanic. Walk the workshop in your own boots, look at a job and the actions list themselves beside it: kneel at a wheel, lean into the engine bay, phone the dealer from the bench, log on to the PC. Parts you order arrive on the Haruka Parts truck after dark. Roll the door up, sign for the box, unpack it and fit it yourself.
Engine stages, a bolt-on turbo kit (or a bigger turbine), ECU, exhaust, clutch and flywheel, close-ratio gearbox, and a 1-, 1.5- or 2-way LSD. Preview any of it live on the car.
Tyres up to racing softs, suspension up to coilovers, brakes up to a racing kit, carbon panels, and aero from a lip and ducktail to a GT wing with real downforce.
Free to change: anti-roll bars, dampers, ride height, final drive, brake bias, wing angle, steering rack. A dyno pull keeps the last curve so you can see what you bought, and a PP rating sums the car up.
A beige desktop under the lightbox: order parts on PARTS NET, chase deliveries, buy cars from the dealer, check your records, and read a touge BBS that talks about you as you climb the ladder.
Every run leaves a mark, and every mark costs you something until you put it right in the garage.
Japan's late-80s and 90s sports cars under parody makes and names, built from real-world figures at real-world scale, with working cabins, opening hoods, the right engine under each one and brakes you can see through the spokes. Every car has its own engine voice and three body kits by made-up tuners. Buy them with prize money from battles. Here are the four you meet first.
| Car | Layout | Weight | Redline | Price | How it drives |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Yotaka Raimei GUNMA 30086-14 | FR · NA 4 131 hp | 980 kg | 8,200 rpm | Yours | Light hatch, no torque. Keep it rolling and never lift in the hairpins. |
| Daisan Silhouette | FR · Turbo 4 | 1,180 kg | 7,200 rpm | ¥150,000 | Boost from 3,500 rpm. The easiest car to hold sideways. |
| Ahura Rotary Seven | FR · 2-rotor | 1,260 kg | 8,000 rpm | ¥300,000 | Sharp nose. Snaps if you rush it. |
| Daisan Kaiju R | AWD · Turbo 6 | 1,480 kg | 7,600 rpm | ¥500,000 | Huge traction, hates to rotate. Fast, but it won't dance. |
RAIMEI · RAIMEI TURBO · RAIMEI COUPE · RAIMEI 1500 · MIDSHIP TWO · MIDSHIP SPYDER · SUPREMO · ALTITUDE RS · CELESTE ALL-FOUR
9 cars
SILHOUETTE · SILHOUETTE Q · SILHOUETTE R · ONE-EIGHTY · SILHOU-EIGHTY · KAIJU R · KAIJU R NEO · KAIJU GT · ZED V6
9 cars
ROTARY SEVEN · ROTARY CLASSIC · ROADSTAR · ROADSTAR II
4 cars
CIVILIAN SR · CIVILIAN R · INTEGRAL R · NEO SPORT X · S-TWO K
5 cars
EVOLVER III · IV · V · VI CE · VII
5 cars
SEIZA PLEIADES RS · SUZUME ESPRESSO · STERNWAGEN STERN E
3 cars: a boxer, a kei roadster and a V8 saloon
No samples anywhere. The engines are firing pulses through exhausts, in eight voices. Crickets and frogs at the summit lake, cicadas at dusk, fluorescent hum in the garage. The eurobeat album is synthesised too, and so is the demo here. Each rival races to their own song, and its title card slides in at GO.
The whole frame is lit with modern lights first, then crushed into a PlayStation-era picture:
Manual or automatic gearbox, your call on the menu. A keyboard driver gets grip-aware steering so full lock on a key doesn't throw the car.
| Action | Keyboard | Gamepad |
|---|---|---|
| Throttle / brake | W S | RT LT |
| Steer | A D | Left stick |
| Handbrake | Space | LB |
| Shift up / down | E Q | Y X |
| Auto / manual | M | Menu |
| Camera | Tab | View |
| Reset onto the road | R | – |
| Garage: walk, look, use | WASD mouse E | Sticks A |
No. It's an original game inspired by the same thing that inspired that manga: 90s touge culture on Gunma's mountain roads. The cars, drivers, shops and passes are fictional, and the makes are parodies in the GTA style.
PC. It's built in Unreal Engine 5.8 and the playable build runs on Linux today. A Steam page is planned; there's no release date yet.
Keyboard and mouse or a gamepad. The handling is tuned so keyboard driving works properly: steering speed adapts to grip, and there's ABS, a handbrake that slides and an optional traction control with OFF, DRIFT and GRIP modes.
A pass is 1.4 to 2.1 km, so a run is a couple of minutes. Win by the finish or by pulling 250 m clear. Rematch with one key.
Yes. The nine-track album, every engine note and all the ambience are synthesised as the game runs. Nothing is sampled. The loop on this page is a small browser version of the same idea.
Every good lock-up has one. Tora sleeps by the warm drinks machine, wanders the room without ever walking through the car, purrs if you pet it, and is gone at the first rev.
One developer, one engine, one mountain at a time. Everything above is playable now; nothing here is a mock-up.
Three passes, the rival ladder, time attack with ghost, the first-person garage, deliveries, tuning, wear and heat, the 35-car roster, the album.
Handling, balance and the feel of the garage, on keyboard and pad, with a standalone Linux build.
Coming Soon listing with a trailer cut from the game. Release date to be set.
Screenshots are captured from the game at 1280×720 or 1920×1080 with the retro filter on. Open one to see it full size.
