How to play
- Goal
- Ride the coal tub down the rails from the pit-head to the yard.
- How it ends
- A run is won when the tub rolls into the yard; it is lost if the tub tips over in a bend, falls through broken rails, strikes a rock or a timber, hits a buffer, or stalls.
- Record
- The fastest run and the fewest jumps for each coal road; every run counts.
- Press any control to push off from the pit-head; the tub then rolls on its own, faster downhill and slower uphill, and the clock starts. Ride it down the rails to the daylight of the yard as fast as you can.
- Hold Lean left or Lean right (the arrow keys, or A and D) toward a bend and the tub takes it faster without tipping; leaning the wrong way tips it sooner. Hold Brake (Down or S) before a bend too sharp for your speed. The gauge in the corner of the view is your speed against the next bend: green take it sitting up, amber lean in, red brake or it tips.
- Tap Jump (Space or Up) just before broken rails or a fallen rock; keep low under a low timber, painted red. Tap Points (X) to throw the next red lever ahead and send the tub the other way; a turnout ending at a buffer is a dead end. An old trestle gives way at its time: be over it first or jump the gap it leaves. R rides the road again at once.
Controls
| Lean ◀ ▶ (held) · ← → · A D | Lean into a bend |
|---|---|
| Brake (held) · ↓ · S | Brake |
| Jump · Space · ↑ · W | Jump |
| Points · X | Throw the next points ahead |
| R | Ride again |
| Escape | Pause (the run's time then no longer counts for a record) |
The mine painting behind the menus, the fonts and the sounds come from the Morass warehouse; the galleries, the rails, the hazards, the tub and its rider are drawn by the game in plain canvas, projected from the road's own 3D points. A run is sent as its moves alone, and the records worker rides it again with the same core before it ranks the result. Your progress stays in this browser under morass.minecart-rush.v1. No ads or analytics run inside the game.
About Minecart Rush
A minecart time trial on the coal-roads of the Iron Coast, seen from just behind the tub. Holdarn's coal wagons run on wooden-and-iron guide-rails from the pits in the southern hills down to the yards; a Skettarn, one of the big-eared river-hagglers who never pay full fare, rides an empty tub down them for nothing. Timber frames rush past, lamps swing by on the walls, bends swing the gallery and drops fall away under the wheels.
Nothing on a road is a surprise. A strip under the view shows the whole road from the side: every bend marked by how sharp it is, every gap in the rails, every fallen rock, low timber, points lever and old trestle, and your tub on it. A gauge on the view shows your speed against the next bend: green you can take it sitting up, amber only leaning in, red it tips you over. The tub's physics is exact, the same to the last bit in every browser, so a road can be learned.
There are 96 roads in eight galleries, each bringing one new thing: sharp bends with a climb after them, broken rails, fallen rocks and low timbers, points that send you down a dead end, long steep drops, short cuts over broken rails, and old trestles that give way at their time. Every road was ridden by ten late, misjudging hands before it shipped. Each keeps a Top 10 for the fastest run and one for the fewest jumps, and the site rides every run again before it keeps a place.
