As a kid in the ’70s/’80s I was innundated with TV ads for slot car racing sets during the Saturday morning cartoons as I sat on the floor eating my Cap’n Crunch cereal. It was great! These were complicated, plastic tracks with twists, turns, overpasses, and even jumps. Tiny, high-speed, electric racing cars would ride a slot in the track to victory. “Driving" consisted of judiciously giving your car juice by way of a wired handheld controller with a big analog trigger. Go too slow and you’d lose the race. Go too fast and your car would fly off the track at the next turn. Or collide with another car at an intersection. It was heaven, and–oh–that lovey, lovely smell of ozone.
Those that missed out on so much on-the-carpet goodness or who would love the chance to nostalgically relive those fond memories should keep an eye out for Freeverse‘s upcoming iPhone game, SlotZ Racer. It’s slot car racing on the iPhone.
TUAW recently had a chance to spend some time with a pre-release version.
I was able to test a pre-release version of the game, and it’s a ton of fun. You can race on pre-defined tracks ranging from a simple oval to a curvy Grand Prix course, and there’s a track editor for creating your own race courses. There are settings for the number of lanes, the car scale (1:32 or HO), and whether or not cars can change lanes.
To accelerate your car, you just hold down on the lower left corner of the iPhone screen. Like real slot cars, if you go too fast your car will flip off the track. You can slow the car down by taking your finger or thumb off of the screen.
The official launch of SlotZ Racer is expected to happen during Macworld Expo, early next month. There is no pricing information at this time.
Stay tuned for more information on this one and see TUAW’s gallery for more screenshots.
