Phantom Spark

A minimalist approach to time trial racing, entirely focused on finding the best driving lines and letting off the accelerator as little as possible. Obvious for a racing game, right? But here, top speed is so high compared to acceleration that you're unlikely to ever reach it. Several times I lost to ghosts because, while I was in front the entire time, I came out of the final turn slower, and all that built up acceleration from the ghost behind me led to a hopeless final straightaway. It's an obvious racing truth but the game being so minimalist makes it stand out. There's no drifting (outside of on specific muddy terrain) and no gears to shift, just turns, elevation, gaps in the track and how you manage your acceleration through them. With so few options to consider, it's usually easy to figure out how to improve your times. If you're new to time trial racing, the game's patient approach makes it easy to get into. There are incrementally-faster ghosts to race from the Champions in the story, so you could even race ghosts offline! It works really well on Steam Deck with a couple settings turned down, so it's a great fit. Featuring some really chill background tracks it's a great time hopping in and honing a track, shaving time down little by little. It often tries to suggest you go to another track, maybe if it thinks you're getting stuck and frustrated, but I imagine most players wouldn't tackle the game that way.

Full speed with magical music <3

A true hidden gem between Redout and Trackmania

With my only experience in AG racing being Redout 1, I've picked this game up on a whim. And I do not regret having done so. It's a time-trial racer. It's easy to pick up and understand, which is what makes it so fun I find - there's no complicated mechanics at play, just you, your spark (the vehicle), and the pathway. There are domain-specific modifications to the pathways. Fwinti's domain, for example, has sand that you basically perma-drift on. Zyn's domain has rivers you gain extra speed on if you stick to them. These are small yet interesting enough additions that make finding the most optimal path more interesting, rather than a "take the turn as tight as you can" type of thing. Overall, I find it to be a fun game! But again, this is not coming from someone who generally plays racings games on a regular basis. Still, I enjoy this game well enough that I plan to finish it to completion.

It will always be fun to zoom at fukcning hgih speeds with music, in fact. Easily the best parts of Trackmania without needing to know about niche mechanics.

A well-realized indie title for what it aims to achieve. Time trial to your heart's content in stylized, zen spaces. Not my most preferred experience, but there for those who can appreciate the simplicity, aesthetics, and competition to be found in this package.

[h1]Decent, Short, Shallow[/h1] Driving feels good, but there are nearly no mechanics -- just a few track surfaces and gravity. After getting Line Level 2 (read: silver medal) on every track, it's just about extreme precision which gets tiring fast because you cannot restart from a checkpoint to practice a specific track section. With very few tracks and no community tracks, you'll get bored with this fast. If you just want to have some fun, grab it on a sale; otherwise get Trackmania instead.

v fun :)

It's a good game.

very good