HARDPACK RALLY COMING TO STEAM
A blue rally car on a pale gravel road through burnt trees, low sun ahead, a gate banner and spectators in the distance.

HARDPACK
RALLY

One road, dealt as you drive it. Gates against a clock that only a clean one refills.

01 / THE GAME

An arcade rally game with no finish line

Hardpack Rally is a driving game about one long dirt road and the nerve to keep your foot in. The road is not a track laid out in advance. It is dealt ahead of you, part by part, and it hardens the further you get: sweepers give way to chicanes, chicanes to narrows, esses and hairpins, with jumps, whoops and blind crests throughout.

The handling is arcade, not simulation. The car turns its nose and the grip scrubs the slide away, so a corner is a decision about the throttle rather than an exam in weight transfer. The springs, the jumps and the air are still real, which is why a crest taken flat still costs you.

Every run is recorded. Beat your time and your own ghost drives the next one alongside you.

  • Flat-shadedNo textures. Hard facets, painted color, a sky that is half the frame.
  • Dealt, not drawnA seed becomes a road, the land under it, and everything standing at its edge.
  • Built to run60 fps at 1280 by 800 on a Steam Deck, shadows on.
  • Same numbers everywhereThe driving model is a Rust core, identical to the bit on every machine.
02 / THE RUN

The clock is the whole game

  1. 1

    Thread the gate

    Gates stand across the road every 300 to 400 meters, painted posts and a cream banner. Go through and the clock goes back to fifteen seconds.

  2. 2

    Keep the streak

    Each gate in a row pays more than the last. Miss one and the clock keeps only what was left of it, which is rarely enough.

  3. 3

    Run it dry

    When the clock reaches zero the run is over and the score stands. Fifteen seconds across 340 meters asks about 51 mph of you, so that is the floor, not the target.

The game in play: a blue car at 84 mph on a dirt road through tall pines at sunset, with the clock, the route map and the gear dial on screen.
The road ahead, the time left, the gear, and the line you are on. Nothing else.
03 / THE WORLD

Five countries, one drive

A long run rolls out of one landscape and into the next with a blend between them, and the hour rolls with it: day, afternoon, sunset, dusk, night, dawn.

Green farm country, guardrails and barriers along a gravel road, pines on the hills.
VALLEYOpen corners, fences, barns, a tabletop you can take flat.
A dirt road running straight through tall pine trees under a pink sunset sky.
WOODSLong sweepers under the trunks, the odd crest into the dark.
A pale road climbing through green highland with a wooden fence, power lines and a mountain skyline.
ALPINESwitchbacks, causeways and the thin air of the ridge.
A sand road between tall dunes under a clear sky.
DESERTWide, fast and flat out. The biggest jumps of the lot.
Burnt bare trunks either side of a pale road with the sun low on the horizon.
BURNTNothing to hide behind, and nothing to hit either.
The same car at night on a road past white houses, headlights on, spectators at a gate ahead.
AFTER DARKHeadlights, tail lights, and whatever the moon gives you.
04 / THE CARS

Two on the grid, more in the shed

Both run on engine audio recorded from real cars, one loop per hold from idle to the limiter. The rest of the field joins them as each one is tuned.

A blue and yellow four-door rally car with a rear wing and a light bar, three quarter view.

KAIDO RS22

The quick one. Long, level and hard to upset, until it is.

TOP
134 mph
LENGTH
4.34 m
DOORS
Four
A white rally hatchback with red and blue stripes and a roof rack, three quarter view.

SAVELLI SPRINT

Point it, pin it, and hold on for the noise.

TOP
117 mph
LENGTH
3.90 m
DOORS
Two
05 / SHOTS

Straight out of the game

Nothing retouched. Click one to see it whole.

06 / UNDER THE HOOD

How it is put together

A Rust core

The road, the land, the driving law and the replays all live in one Rust library. The shell around it draws and listens. Two machines given the same seed and the same inputs produce the same run, down to the last decimal.

Replays and ghosts

A run is saved as inputs rather than video, so it can be watched from any camera: orbit it, fly it, or plant a tripod at the corner and let the car come to you.

Photo mode

Stop the run, take the camera off the car, frame the shot. Every picture on this page came out of the game that way.

Made for the Deck

The Steam Deck at 60 fps is the floor the whole look is built against, which is why it is facets and rules instead of textures and photographs.

Coming to Steam

Windows and Steam Deck. A store page follows when it is ready. Until then, this is where the game lives.

Hardpack Rally is in development. Everything here is from a build in progress.