Driving is an occupation that could have various emotional effects. Drive in traffic and you’re bound to become stressed. If you’re a courier, speed is of the essence. Ditto if you’re a Formula One driver. And if you’ve got nowhere to be, driving can be rather relaxing. Slow Roads, a free browser-based game, is one of the latter experiences.
Slow Roads to nowhere
The concept behind the game is simple. You take a vehicle, whether it’s a car, bike, or bus, and traverse roads. Slowly, sure, but there’s also the option to clock up some serious speed. But the relaxing bit is that there’s no real point to the game. The roads and scenery are procedurally generated and there’s no way to fail the game. It’s just you and the open road. And your computer, because the game runs in a web browser.
Slow Roads was developed and launched by a Scottish developer, Anslo, and is an “…experiment in procedurally generating infinite, scenic landscapes, packaged as a casual driving game and built in JavaScript to run in a browser”. It might be a technical experiment but it’s also quite a smooth experience. And it’s free.
The game should run on most computers, though it’ll help if you have GPU Hardware Acceleration enabled for your browser. If you’re not experiencing any stuttering you probably don’t have to play a game of ‘Hunt the Setting’ first, however. Stuff ran Slow Roads on a MacBook Air using Chrome without any issues at all. Beyond a Zen-like sensation as the roads unrolled beneath us, of course.