Choosing Race: Krautscape

Krautscape looks like the racing game from my dreams, the one where the path pops up right in front of me like a rainbow. And look at this story. This is the hot shit, man:

Around 1880, the world renowned german inventor Dr. Konrad von Krautkopf developed a machine, which could not only drive at enormous speeds, it could also fly. He called them Krautomobiles (or Krautos). As he couldn‘t find a way to keep these machines working within our known laws of physics, he attempted to create a system which gave the Krautos a opportunity to operate outside of the usual cobble-stoned roads being used back in the 19th century. He called this system „The Krautscape“. Due to his obstinate character, he never told anyone, apart from his best friend Carl Benz. In the „Krautscape“, with simple control-mechanisms, Krautos can control the street by directing the way it is built, in order to help them reach their goal in the quickest time possible. For a Krauto, to affect the curve of the street, it simply would have to drive on the edge of it whilst driving through the street-building gate. Dr. von Krautkopf imagined this system as a flexible alternative for common modes of transport and also for special events like races, where it would create a racetrack.

I know, only sick and strange people care about story in racing or fighting games, but this seems like a game created by the sick and strange. In its essence, the game seems like a delicious mixture of Audiosurf, F-Zero, and those devilishly twisted moments in Mario Kart 64 where you jumped off of Rainbow Road only to land further ahead on the track, way ahead of your opponents.

It’s basically Rainbow Road the game, except instead of you having to carefully plot your jumps, you’re in a weird half car, half plane hovercraft that can fly across the level. Oh, and the person in first creates the track in front of them based off their position, allowing them drive the track away from would be flying passers.

This all looks glorious, in other words. No word on a release date yet (“before June 2051”, the developer kindly hints in the comments to the below video. Thanks, guv!) but it’s in development for PC and Mac. Here’s their site again, and here it is in glorious motion: