How to play
TOUGE DRIFT puts you in a white-and-black 80s hatchback with pop-up headlights at the top of a Japanese mountain pass at dusk, and the road goes on down for ever. You see it from above, and the camera turns with the car. W is the gas, S brakes, A and D steer, Space is the handbrake and Shift fires the nitro. The arrow keys work too. R restarts a run and Esc or P pauses.
To drift, keep the gas down and turn hard once you are over about 90 km/h on the gauge, and the back of the car steps out. The handbrake kicks it sideways at once, at any speed. Some of the slide turns back into drive, so a good drift costs little speed, and if you let go of the steering the car straightens itself up.
A drift scores when the car is at more than about eleven degrees to its direction of travel and doing over about 64 km/h. Faster and wider is worth more. When you straighten up for a moment, the drift is banked and added to your score.
There are three ways to play. Race lines you up on a staggered grid with three rivals and a set of start lights: Kenta in a red coupe, Shin in a blue sedan and Mika in a yellow roadster. It is a downhill sprint of about eighty seconds to a FINISH banner. Time Attack gives you 45 seconds and an endless road; every chequered strip across the road adds time, and the run ends when the clock hits zero. Free Run has no clock at all, for learning the car and the corners.
Tips and strategy
- Link your drifts. The multiplier goes up by one for every 1.3 seconds you hold a slide, up to x10. Bank a drift and start the next within 2.2 seconds and you keep it. Wait longer and it drops back to x1.
- Hug the rail. Drifting within about one and a half car widths of the white edge line doubles the points, and the game shouts CLOSE! to tell you.
- Brush the wall, do not hit it. Light touches only scrape the paint, and a soft cushion near the rail eases the car off it. A hard hit, though, throws away the drift you have not banked yet and resets the multiplier to x1. If a slide is going wide at a high multiplier, straighten up early and bank it.
- Nitro is earned, so spend it on straights. Banked points fill the blue nitro bar, and 4,000 points fill it from empty. A full bar lasts about two and a half seconds, only works with the gas held, and gives a hard shove of extra speed: flat out on gas alone the gauge tops out around 160 km/h, and nitro can push it past 200. Fire it out of a corner, not into one.
- In Time Attack, speed is time. The first checkpoints add about nine seconds each, and the bonus shrinks to five seconds the further down the mountain you get. A clean, fast line beats a showy drift that ends in the rail.
- Watch the road paint. The centre line turns solid yellow through the tight corners, and yellow chevron boards stand on the outside of every real bend. Both warn you before you see the whole corner.
- Racing the rivals: they take the inside of the bend ahead and brake for tight corners. They also ease off when they are well ahead of you and push harder when they are well behind. Cars can bump each other.
What's in it
The road is built as you drive. It mixes straights, long sweeping bends, S-bends and proper hairpins, and it always swings back so it never crosses itself. It starts wide, at 280 pixels, and narrows slowly to 208, while the corners get tighter the further you go. Cedar forest lines both sides, with rocks, street lamps and the odd vending machine. The whole pass is lit for dusk: lamps throw warm pools of light, and your headlights and the rivals' sweep the road ahead.
Tyres leave black skid marks and white smoke, the cars are drawn in detail down to the mirrors, spoilers and front wheels that turn, and the eurobeat music is played live by your browser. Settings has separate sliders for music and sound.
Questions
Why am I not drifting?
You need speed and the gas. Turning hard below about 90 km/h, or with your foot off the gas, just makes the car turn. Tap Space going into the corner to force the slide.
Why did I lose all my points?
You hit the rail hard while a drift was still counting. Only the drift you had not banked is lost, along with the multiplier; your score stays.
Can I play on a phone?
Yes. Hold the left or right half of the screen to steer, and the gas is automatic. Hold both halves at once for the handbrake. There is no brake or nitro on touch.
Does it save?
Yes, in your own browser: your best Time Attack score, your best race time, how many races you have won, and your volume settings. Clearing your browser's site data clears them.
Is the road the same every time?
No. Every run builds a new mountain, so you learn to read corners rather than learn one track.