How to play & controls WORLD DRIVE
WORLD DRIVE is a 3D driving game with 21 roads spread across a globe. Each is a closed loop set at a named place: Kawaguchiko with Mt. Fuji across the lake, the Amalfi coast with Positano stacked above the road, the Lofoten islands under an aurora. Laps run from 3.7 km (Amalfi Coast Drive) to 6.9 km (Alpine Hairpin Pass), and the line glowing on the globe is exactly the road you drive.
The ten cars are invented designs with their own mass, power, brakes, drivetrain and grip; measured in the game, the Midnight Coupe reaches 100 km/h in about 5.2 seconds and the Cotton Camper in about 21. Apart from the music and four plant models, the scenery, cars and sound effects are generated in code.
Free driving has no clock: LOCAL FM on the car radio plays music from the road's country, and captions name landmarks as you pass. Racing adds one-lap time trials with medal times for every road and car, a duel against three rivals, and weekly and monthly series.
Goal
Pick a real road somewhere in the world and cruise it in the car you like, taking in the view. Want a challenge? Try a Time Trial or an AI Rival Duel.
How it works
- Press 'Take this road' on the course card, then choose a car and colour in the garage.
Modes
Free drive
No timer, 4–10 traffic cars, and time of day moving on by itself unless you fix it. Collect a road's landmark cards and take three postcards there to turn its ✓ stamp into a ★. Road trip in the menu moves you on after each lap, preferring undriven roads on another continent.
Time trial
One lap from a standing start after a 3-second countdown, alone in clear daylight with Lane assist and Cruise off. Your best lap per road and car becomes the ghost, and every lap is measured against bronze, silver and gold times.
AI rival duel
One lap against three rivals in your car model. On straights Club rivals hold 58–76% of top speed, Sport 70–89% and Pro 82–98%. Places use your time including off-road penalty; rivals get none.
Weekly & monthly races
A time trial on a road and car fixed per round; rounds start on Mondays and on the 1st at 00:00 UTC. The board shows the top 20 server-timed runs, and last round's top 10 are invited back.
Controls
| Action | Mouse & keyboard | Touch | Gamepad |
|---|---|---|---|
| Steer | ←/→ or A/D (a lane at a time with Lane assist) | ◀ ▶ | Left stick or D-pad ←/→ |
| Gas / brake | ↑/W, ↓/S; release to coast | ▲ / ▼ | RT / LT (analog) or D-pad ↑/↓ |
| Lane assist / cruise | L / X, or the top buttons | Assist / Cruise at the top | L3 (assist); cruise assignable in Controls |
| Camera / look around | C cycles five views; Q/E or mouse drag | 🎥 | B; right stick |
| Time of day / weather | T / G | Top buttons (under ⋯ on a portrait phone) | X / Y |
| Postcard / photo mode | P / O | 📷; Menu › 📸 Photo mode | R3 (photo mode) |
| Retry a race | Shift+R or Try again ↻ | Try again ↻ | Menu on the result screen |
Tips
- AI Rival Duel: race one lap against three rivals in the same car. Pick Club, Sport or Pro in the garage.
- Press a road in the list a second time to set off right away in your current car.
Strategy tips
Every car has its own medal times
On Fuji Sakura Lakeside the Midnight Coupe needs 1:55.6, 1:42.3 and 1:37.4 for bronze, silver and gold; the Cotton Camper needs 3:16.4, 2:42.8 and 2:30.7. Equalling a time earns it. The countdown names your next missing medal, and the HUD tracks your gap to its pace.
Medals predict the duel
I ran the rival model alone, without contact or slipstream, on all 210 road-and-car pairs. Club's fastest rival always beat bronze by 9–14%; Sport's leader finished between 1% faster and 3% slower than gold; Pro's leader beat gold every time, by 0.6–4.5%. Gold pace is roughly the entry ticket for a Pro win.
The edge costs two seconds a second
The penalty clock runs double once the car's centre is within 0.6 m of the asphalt edge on either side, so outside wheels over the line already count; widened multi-lane sections count as road. With the centre 1.2 m past the edge, grip falls to 46% (64% in the all-wheel-drive Forest Trekker).
Brake, don't just lift
Coasting from 90 km/h sheds only about 2.5–3.4 km/h a second, while the brake gives 0.6 g (Cotton Camper) to about 1.2 g (Midnight Coupe) and keeps about 85% of steering grip. The Corner … · Aim … km/h line covers the tightest bend 18–138 m ahead and flags you when over 10 km/h too fast.
You start last
Rivals start 14, 24 and 34 m ahead, spread across the road, the fastest furthest up. They hold their lines and never move over, and contact cuts your speed by 45% but theirs by only 32%, so pass where the road beside them is clear.
Draft, then pass in a corner
Within 4–30 m straight behind a rival, above about 50 km/h with the throttle down, you gain up to 1.1 m/s² and up to 5% over top speed, more the closer you are. Rivals corner on 80% of the available grip, so bend entry is where you gain; in the last third they speed up 4%.
Updated: