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Slow Roads is a casual, procedurally-generated driving game which lets you disconnect from life for a while and run endlessly toward the distant horizon. Set the scenery to suit your mood, throw on some music, and
just drive.
just drive.
Background
My name is anslo and I'm a creative developer exploring in the space between design and computer science. With a background in software engineering and a life-long love of functional art, my projects focus on finding novel applications of digital technology in answering interesting design questions.
Slow Roads exists primarily as an exploration of procedural scenery generation, but also as an experiment testing the boundaries of 3D application development within JavaScript. As a game, this project is a nostalgic love letter to the rolling hills of the Peak District, and to the arcade rally games I would play for hours on end as a child. As a technical demo, I aim to set a high bar and redress the negative idea of what can be accomplished in the browser.
Aside from this, my hope is that those in need of a simple, soothing escape will find it here.
Slow Roads exists primarily as an exploration of procedural scenery generation, but also as an experiment testing the boundaries of 3D application development within JavaScript. As a game, this project is a nostalgic love letter to the rolling hills of the Peak District, and to the arcade rally games I would play for hours on end as a child. As a technical demo, I aim to set a high bar and redress the negative idea of what can be accomplished in the browser.
Aside from this, my hope is that those in need of a simple, soothing escape will find it here.
Development Plan
After 16 months of full-time development, the initial goals for this project have been fulfilled, and so I'm considering it to be complete. That said, there are many features which didn't make the priority list for version 1. If there is interest, I would love to continue developing these features into the future.
I'm committed to keeping Slow Roads freely available and free from adverts, but I don't have the financial capacity to keep the servers running by myself. If you would like to keep the game alive, a kind donation would be greatly appreciated. Let me know which of the features below you would like to see most!
Join the discord server to suggest new ideas. Supporters on ko-fi get early access and priority requests!
I'm committed to keeping Slow Roads freely available and free from adverts, but I don't have the financial capacity to keep the servers running by myself. If you would like to keep the game alive, a kind donation would be greatly appreciated. Let me know which of the features below you would like to see most!
Potential Future Features:
- Support for controllers and wheels
- More locations (particularly off-road), skins, and weathers
- More vehicle types
- Improved weather effects (rain, snow, fog, wind)
- Improved lighting and shadows
- Competitive modes and global leaderboards for furthest distance, fastest mile, etc.
- Further optimisation for lower-end systems
- Improved environmental detail and effects (birds, buildings, structures, cows...)
- More locations (particularly off-road), skins, and weathers
- More vehicle types
- Improved weather effects (rain, snow, fog, wind)
- Improved lighting and shadows
- Competitive modes and global leaderboards for furthest distance, fastest mile, etc.
- Further optimisation for lower-end systems
- Improved environmental detail and effects (birds, buildings, structures, cows...)
Join the discord server to suggest new ideas. Supporters on ko-fi get early access and priority requests!
Technical Blog
While I have no immediate plans to make the source code public, over the next few weeks I will be writing blog posts diving into each of the main components. If you're curious, please follow me on Twitter or Medium to be notified of new posts.
1. Project overview (tl;dr for all sections)
2. Generating realistic environment heightmaps (early November)
3. Pathing a route through the environment
4. Rendering seamless, dynamically-generated environment geometry
5. Graphics and shading
6. Cheap vehicle physics
7. Optimisation strategies
8. UX approach
9. Testing and analytics
10. Project Retrospective
FAQ
Why does it run so poorly/like a slideshow?
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What's different about this driving game?
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How does the environment generation engine work?
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Why a JavaScript browser game, and not a conventional engine?
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Why electric vehicles?
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Will you make it open source?
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Why can I drive through trees and signs?
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Will you support mobile/controllers/wheels?
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How much will it cost?
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Will there ever be a competitive mode?
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Archived Versions
v1.0.0-beta.6 - 31st March
v1.0.0-beta.7 - 20th April
v1.0.0-beta.8 - 10th May
v1.0.0-beta.9 - 31st May
v1.0.0-beta.10 - 21st July
v1.0.0-beta.11 - 4th October
v1.0.0-beta.12 - 12th October
v1.0.0-beta.13 - 16th October
v1.0.0-beta.7 - 20th April
v1.0.0-beta.8 - 10th May
v1.0.0-beta.9 - 31st May
v1.0.0-beta.10 - 21st July
v1.0.0-beta.11 - 4th October
v1.0.0-beta.12 - 12th October
v1.0.0-beta.13 - 16th October
New version available!
Update with a hard refresh(CTRL + F5)
Position:
1, 2, 3
Far Coords:
1, 2, 3
Vehicle Node:
1
Midline Tail:
123