Race The Sun

Played this almost a decade ago and just recently remembered it exists. One of the best runner games out there.

Last played 26.10.2017
Well isn't this one of the games to just come back to for no reason sometimes. No goodbye, come back for a moment, leave forever, repeat.

I've been playing Race The Sun for years! I originally got it on release on Humble, then on console. Since coming back on PC, I had a Steam code and been getting back into the game.

It's probably one of the best endless runner games, simple controls, simple rules and a good feel for speed. I've generally been playing it on the keyboard as I find it easier to roll the glider, but its harder to get that finesse control while navigating through smaller gaps.

The aim of the game is to keep racing to the horizon and keeping the sun in the sky, that's what powers the glider. Going in to the shadows will slow down your glider and of course the lowing sun will slow it down to a halt also which means game over. So keep in the light, and use power up objects like jumps and boosts to keep within the light.

The worlds should change every day so it feels different enough to feel fresh. There's other modes but I haven't got there yet.

The game looks fantastic, the simplistic vector graphics work well for a game like this. As its not about how detailed it is but how it feels when you go fast!

The game also plays good on a Steam Deck :)

I would skip the Zen mode though.

I first played Race the Sun about a decade ago back when it released. For some reason I decided to boot it up again recently, only to find it has a free VR mode!
The game is superb in VR - looks absolutely incredible and is able to run at incredibly high framerates even on a potato computer thanks to the simplistic, low-poly design. Race the Sun is at its absolute best in VR, where you're fully immersed in the world and able to make fine adjustments much easier thanks to the added sense of depth.
If you play VR regularly on your PC, this game definitely deserves to be in your library.

The leaderboards are down and the console versions got the dlc for free but this game is still timeless. It's quick, responsive, looks great at any level of machine and plays fantastically. Highly recommend.

Clean. Aesthetic. Simple w/o being easy. Challenging w/o being Dark Souls. A great game to play while on the phone with your long-winded mother or listening to an audio book. This game is a must-have for my wife and me.

Race the Sun has been a consistently solid game over the years as a quick launch runner.
Each run is a challenging thrill and the constant reminder that your source of power is setting makes for tense on the fly decision making that can extend or end your runs. The slow build-up of speed & sparse obstacles in the first level is welcomed as someone who has to acclimate themselves with high speed movement. The levels become progressively harder with more obstacles, challenging routes based on your decisions and of course urgency to keep your ships battery charged by staying within the suns light as it gradually sets.
The game controls the ship's speed based on its position within the light & how much charge your battery has when entering & traversing through the shade of obstacles and the sun. Your speed will decrease in the shade as your battery depletes and once it has been depleted by either the sun setting your inability to leave the shade, the run will end; on that note it will also end if you crash into any obstacle.
Each level features three boons that affect your gameplay, The yellow boon is a speed boost that gives you a massive burst of speed helping you extend your runs in dire times; The green boon allows you to jump using spacebar to avoid obstacles and the purple boon gives you a onetime Resurrection that allows you to continue a run upon crashing. All in all, you are limited to controlling the ships horizontal movement and only upon collecting the aforementioned boon, the vertical.
There is a steam workshop & level editor available; the top five or so worlds by the community are incredibly well made and offer a change to what the base game's worlds provide with references & placement in other media's worlds, although there's not much beyond those aforementioned worlds, unless you wish to make them yourself.
Race the Sun has been one of my favourite load and play games since 2013 but sadly with my latest playthrough I've been notified that the leaderboards are now defunct. The shutdown of the leaderboards is a part of any games lifecycle but I found that in Race the Sun's case it has ruined a level of short term replayability by removing the record of your own runs and that of other players, thus affecting a sense of improvement. At this point in the games life you will have to manually track the relevant information or maintain visual memory to have that sense of improvement.
Conclusion
Race the Sun has lost short term replayability with the shutdown of its leaderboards but the game itself offers a great level of challenge with tense pathing and on the fly puzzle solving linked to the sun & battery charge mechanic. There is a lot you can get out of Race the Sun by challenging yourself even if the game is extremely simple. There are three worlds in the base game each drastically different from the other and community content that provides unique experiences/challenge as well.
I greatly recommend the Race the Sun to anyone interested in the runner genre or who wants a game that can provide challenges in small pockets of time. It's a steal during sales and while I would have recommended the title at full price in the past, I'd say pick it up on sale when possible for $1.45AUD.