Racetrack
Vector Race
The track is drawn on squared paper and a car is a chain of segments: each turn its speed may change by no more than one square on each axis.
The track is drawn freehand on squared paper: two lines, a road with bends between them, a start and a finish across it. A car is a point on a node of the grid, and its trail is a chain of segments.
A move works like this. The of the last move is repeated from the current position, giving the — where the car goes if nothing is done. You may stop there or at any of the eight neighbouring nodes, that is, change your speed by no more than one square horizontally and one vertically.
Everything that makes it a race follows. Accelerating is easy and braking has to start early: build a vector of six squares along a straight and there is nothing left to take a bend with, since a turn sheds only one square of speed. Good players take the outside line and start shedding several moves before the corner.
Rules of Racetrack
The track
A closed or open track is drawn on squared paper: two borders and a road between them, several squares wide. A start line and a finish line are drawn across the road.
Every car is placed on the start, each on its own node.
The first move
From a standstill a car may move to any neighbouring node or stay put: the starting speed is zero, and it may change by one square on each axis.
A move
- Repeat the last move's vector from the current position — that gives the base point.
- Stop there or at any of the eight neighbouring nodes.
In other words, the speed on each axis changes by no more than one per turn. The segment from the old point to the new one is drawn — that is the new vector.
The track and its borders
The segment of a move must lie wholly inside the track. Crossing a border is not allowed.
A car that has ended up outside counts as having left the track: it returns to the nearest node on the track and carries on from zero speed.
The finish
The winner is whoever's segment first crosses the finish line in the proper direction.
Where laps have been agreed on a circuit, the finish only counts on the last of them.
Worth knowing
The penalty for leaving the track is set variously: in some games the car returns to the track at zero speed, in others it misses a turn, in others it is out. Whether cars can collide is nowhere fixed either — most often they are simply ignored. The width of the track and the number of laps are entirely up to whoever draws it.
Glossary of terms
- The base point
- The node the car would reach by repeating its last move unchanged. Where it actually stops is chosen from there.
- The vector
- The segment of the last move. It is also the speed: the next move begins by repeating it.