itch.io

Thanks! It's Mac-only for now because it draws with Apple's Metal directly - a Windows version needs a new renderer. If enough people ask, I'll make the port. Follow me here on itch and you'll hear about it first.

Hi everyone! I've just released Shadeburn Racer, a racing game about speed and crashes. It's for Macs with Apple Silicon only (M1 or newer, macOS 13+), so I'm saying that up front to save Windows and Linux players a click.

**What it is**

Eight old muscle cars on the grid and one rule: get to the line first, or be the last car still running. Cars dent, lose doors and bonnets, and drive worse when they're hurt — a bent axle pulls, a broken engine loses power.

- A new track every race, built from a seed: ovals, twisty knots, figure eights, and circuits with bridges. If you like one, save it by name.

- 7 locations (farmland, desert, mountains, old town, neon downtown, port, tundra) and 8 kinds of weather, from dust storms to the polar aurora.

- Demolition derby, and a championship of three cups with a garage of 9 upgrade parts.

- Multiplayer for up to 8 players, on your local network or online.

- Keyboard or game controller.

**How it's made**

There is no game engine. It's written in Free Pascal and draws with Metal directly; the cars, tracks, towns, the font and the music are all made by code. The soundtrack is composed by the game while you play, on recorded rock and folk instruments. The whole download is 9 MB. I wrote it with AI as a pair programmer, and the trailer above was recorded by the game itself.

**I'd love your feedback**

This is the first release. If a track generates something strange, please post the seed number from the track map (bottom of the QUICK RACE page) — every seed builds the same track, so I can drive it and fix it. And tell me what you'd like next: more cars, more locations, or something else.

Page: https://countshadow.itch.io/shadeburn-racer

Thanks for reading!