Two keys. A quarter mile. No room for error.

TapRacer is a side-on drag racing game. You tap two keys in strict alternation — that's your throttle. How fast you tap sets the revs. What comes of them is up to the car.

One race, four decisions

Burnout. Cold tires are bad tires. Spin them up on the line until they're in the window — too little and you'll light them up off the start, too much and they go greasy.

Launch. The clutch drops on a button press. Too few revs and the engine bogs; too many and the wheels break loose. The perfect start lives in between. Reaction time counts, and jumping the lights loses you the race outright.

Shifting. The window sits just short of the red. Hit it and you keep everything. Early and it lugs, late and the limiter eats your time. If that's one thing too many, take the automatic — safe, never perfect.

Tapping. All the way, green to stripe. Easing off shows up immediately.

Cars that drive their spec sheet

No abstract stat bars. Every vehicle has a real torque curve, real gear ratios, mass, drag and rolling resistance. The clutch slips, the rear axle squats under power, the tires heat up and cool back down. The better car wins between equal drivers — but frantic tapping keeps a worse one in the fight for a surprisingly long time.

A workshop, not a storefront

Earn money on the strip and put it into engine, tires, gearbox and clutch. Parts wear when you abuse them — over-revved engines, burnt clutches, blown tires. The service bay is waiting.

Someone is always faster

A career against a climbing field. Daily challenges. Online leaderboards where you chase the leader's ghost. A LAN duel against the machine in the next room. Or two players on one keyboard.

None of it is for sale. No microtransactions, no ads, no shortcuts.

Features

• Two-key control with strict alternation — your tapping rate is the throttle
  
• Real longitudinal dynamics: torque map, engine inertia, clutch slip, traction limit
  
• Tire temperature with burnout warm-up and overheating
  
• Weight transfer — rear-wheel drive launches nothing like front-wheel drive
  
• Manual shifting with a timing window, or automatic for the safe way round
  
• 18 vehicles across several classes, all earned in game
  
• Four upgrade paths: engine, tires, gearbox, clutch
  
• Part wear and mechanical failures when you push too hard
  
• Career, quick race with a wager, time trial against your own ghost
  
• Online leaderboards and daily challenges
  
• LAN duel and two-player on a single keyboard
  
• English and German

A word from the developer

This started with a joystick. Summer Games on the Amiga: the 100 metres, where
you hammered the stick left and right as fast as your wrist would go, and the
runner on screen went exactly as fast as you did. Nothing between you and the
result.

I wanted that back. And I wanted to know what happens if you put it on top of
physics that are actually honest — a real torque curve, a clutch that slips,
tires that heat up and then go off again.

The answer is a quarter mile decided in four moments, where a worse car in
better hands stays in the fight far longer than it should.

This is my first release. The demo is coming before Next Fest, and I read
everything that comes back. If something feels wrong, tell me — that is exactly
what the demo is for.