How to play
DEMOLITION DERBY is a top-down smash-up for eight cars in a walled dirt arena. You drive one; seven AI drivers drive the rest. Wreck the others, keep your own engine alive, and the last car still running wins the round. A round starts with a 3-2-1 countdown, and sudden death (below) makes sure it never drags on.
Drive with W for gas, S to brake and then reverse, and A D to steer (the arrow keys work too). Space is the handbrake. Shift is boost: it gives you 1.4 seconds of extra speed and power, only while you hold the gas, and the bar refills over 8 seconds. R restarts and Esc or P pauses.
Where you hit matters more than how often. Every car has four damage zones, front, rear, left and right, plus an engine. The front bumper is armoured and takes less than half the normal damage. The sides take the most, a quarter more than normal, and the rear is close behind. So the hit you want is a T-bone, your nose into someone's door. A car that has just been hit also loses most of its grip for a moment, so a T-bone shoves it sideways across the dirt.
You can watch the damage happen. Bodies dent where they are struck, bumpers, bonnets, boots and doors fall off, glass cracks, and the bits stay in the arena. The engine tells you how close a car is to the end: grey smoke, then black smoke, then fire. A burning engine keeps losing health on its own. When it hits zero the car stalls and becomes a smoking wreck that others can push around.
At 75 seconds sudden death begins. A ring of fire starts closing in from the arena edge over 40 seconds. Outside it your engine cooks fast. After 115 seconds every engine starts to cook, wherever it is, so every round has an ending.
Tips and strategy
- Lead with your nose. Your front takes 0.45 times normal damage; your sides take 1.25 times. Never let a car line up on your door.
- Save boost for the hit. Boost gives more speed and much harder acceleration, and damage grows with closing speed. A boosted T-bone from a short run-up is the biggest blow you can land.
- Watch the smoke. Black smoke means a car is under 40 per cent engine, and a fire means under 18 per cent. A burning car is one solid hit from the end, and the wreck bonus goes to the last car to hit it within 6 seconds.
- Grab pickups when you are hurt. Pickups appear in the open every 9 to 14 seconds. The green wrench repairs your worst zone and some of your engine. The blue nitro fills your boost. The red spikes make your front-end hits do 1.7 times the damage for 10 seconds.
- Mind the mud. In the Mud Field the puddles cut your grip to about a third, so slide through them.
- Know your rivals. BRUTUS and TANK are bullies, LUCKY runs from anyone aimed at it, SLY hunts the weakest car and DUSTY holds grudges. No more than two AIs hunt you at once.
- Get inside the ring early. When sudden death starts, the middle is the only safe place, which means it is also where everyone meets.
What's in it
Five cars: the free Hatchback (light, quick, fragile), the Station Wagon (600 coins), the Muscle Car, the fastest car here (1,200), the heavy Pickup (2,000) and, for laughs, the enormous School Bus (3,500). Eight paints: four free, four more for 150 to 400 coins.
Three arenas. The County Fair Bowl is an oval ringed with tyres, with fixed tyre stacks to dodge, hay bales you can shove around and grandstands on every side. Win there to open the Mud Field, a soaked farm field with a hay-bale wall and eight puddles. Win there to open the Figure-8, a concrete stadium with two infields where the loops only meet at a central crossover.
Every round pays coins: 300 for first place down to 25 for eighth, plus coins for the damage you deal, 60 for every wreck you cause and one for each second you survive. If you are knocked out early you can watch the rest of the round at 2.5 times speed, and the final wreck plays in slow motion.
Questions
How do I unlock the other arenas?
Win a round at the County Fair Bowl to open the Mud Field, then win a round in the Mud Field to open the Figure-8.
Does it save?
Yes, in your own browser: your coins, cars, paints, unlocked arenas, wins, volume and the car and arena you used last. Clearing your browser's site data clears the save.
Can I play on a phone?
Yes. Drag anywhere on the left of the screen and a stick appears; the car turns to face where you point, and the gas is automatic. The BOOST and REV buttons sit at the bottom right.
Is hiding a good way to win?
Sometimes, but not often. The AI drivers go looking for cars that sit still, and the closing ring of fire drags everyone into the middle in the end. You also earn far fewer coins for a round where you never hit anyone.
Which car should I buy first?
The Station Wagon: it is the cheapest step up, and tougher and more forgiving than the Hatchback.