Changelog

Daily Dirt Rally is developed in the open by one person. This page is the running record of what shipped and when — including the unglamorous fixes, because those are usually the ones players notice.

November 2026

5 November — Upgrades

• Three upgrades on the track. Grip, Acceleration and Top Speed pickups make your truck better for the rest of the set, up to level 4 in each: Top Speed 2.5% a level (495 at level 4), Acceleration 5% a level, Grip 0.05 a level (0.8 at level 4). Each also gives a 1-second burst at half a nitro’s extra speed and spends no nitro. Your levels show under YOUR TRUCK on the standings between races and on Final Standings. See the upgrades guide.
• Shared pickups. Everyone in a race sees the same pickups: one truck takes it and it disappears for everyone. It comes back once, 10 seconds later, on a tile 3 to 8 tiles behind the leading human. That goes for the ten nitros too, which used to be private to each driver. Computer drivers take no pickups and have no upgrades.
• Days raced before 5 November keep private nitros and no upgrades. Upgrades do not change how trucks hit each other.

October 2026

23 October — The first minute

• A new racer starts on the controls. On a first visit the game now opens straight on the picture of a race and its controls (the keys on a computer, the touch buttons on a phone or tablet), with no start screen and no GO RACE to press first. CONTINUE starts the race. A small MENU link under CONTINUE opens the start screen, where Play with friends, the leaderboard and the language button are; it does not count as having seen the picture, so GO RACE shows it again. While the picture is up, the day’s race art loads behind it, so the race comes up quickly.
• A rookie race starts at once and waits for you. A rookie’s lobby no longer waits 8 seconds for company: the race starts as soon as you are seated, with seven computer drivers. They are all easy now, where they used to alternate easy and medium. A rookie race also waits for the rookie: it ends when you have finished, or up to two minutes after the winner, as a safety net for a tab left idle. RACE ENDS IN shows only for the last 30 seconds of that wait. Other lobbies are as they were: 8 seconds after the last driver joins, and a race ends 30 seconds after the first truck crosses the line.
• No ad after a rookie’s first race. A rookie set goes from race 1 straight to the standings. The break after race 2 stays.
• The faster truck pushes the slower one. Hits used to favour the computer drivers: a computer truck shrugged a hit off and carried on with its momentum, while your truck was the one pushed out of the way. Now every truck takes a hit the same way, computer or yours: the faster truck pushes the slower one out of the way, a hit from the side sends a truck sliding until its tyres grip again (a truck at rest shoved sideways at 300 units a second slides about 35 units), and a shove from behind can carry a truck well over its top speed, which it gives back in under a second. Each game now tells the server how its truck is really moving, slide included, and the server tells every game how each truck is moving, so both sides work out the same hit.
• More anonymous events on the game portals. The Poki and Playgama versions now also tell the portal which first screen appeared, when the gas is first pressed in a race, when the halfway checkpoint is passed and when the game cannot reach its server, and every event says whether the device is a touch screen or a keyboard. Still no name, room code or other identifier. The privacy policy lists them. dailydirtrally.com itself sends no analytics.
• Days raced before 23 October keep the old bumps. The rookie changes, the missing ad and the portal events apply on every day.

22 October — A countdown to the end of a race

• RACE ENDS IN 30. Since the sets began, a race has ended 30 seconds after the first truck crosses the line, but nothing on screen said so: a driver still racing had the race stop under them. Now, from that first finish, everyone still racing sees the seconds left counted down under the lap counter, in red for the last ten.

22 October — Shorter races, more to read

• Two laps a race. Every race is now two laps instead of three, so the first result comes sooner and a whole set takes less time.
• Your place as you race. Left of the lap counter the race now shows your place, P3/8 for third of eight, and it flashes when it changes. Pass someone and +1 PLACE! pops up under it; losing a place only changes the number. The server works the order out, and a truck takes a place only once it is a little way past the truck it passed, so the number does not flicker between two trucks side by side.
• Every lap’s time. Under the clocks, each lap you finish shows its time to a tenth of a second and, from the second lap, how much faster or slower it was than the lap before: green for faster, red for slower.
• Less waiting between races. The standings now count down five seconds instead of ten, and have a READY button: when every human driver still connected has pressed it, the next race starts at once. It never cuts an ad short.
• Anonymous gameplay events on the game portals. The Poki and Playgama versions now tell the portal how play is going: a lobby entered, races started and finished with the place, laps completed, a set’s points, leaving early and, on Playgama, a frame-rate sample. They carry no name, room code or other identifier. The privacy policy lists them. dailydirtrally.com itself sends no analytics.
• Days raced before 22 October keep three laps and the ten-second standings, with no READY.

22 October — Forgiving driving

• Computer drivers far ahead ease off. A computer driver more than four tiles ahead of the leading human still racing now eases off, a little at a time, down to 85% of its top speed ten tiles ahead, which is slower than a human at full speed, so the leading human can close the gap. It never goes faster than its own top speed, and a player’s truck the computer drives for them is never slowed.
• Off the road costs less. Off the road your truck now keeps 60% of its top speed, 270 units a second, instead of 30%.
• Back on the road. After about three seconds pinned against a wall or another truck with the gas held, or two seconds off the road, you are put back on the road at your last spot on the dirt, facing along the track, and your truck is see-through for a second, so nobody hits you while you get going.
• WRONG WAY. Drive against the track for a second and a half and the screen says WRONG WAY, with an arrow pointing the right way, until you turn round.
• Days raced before 22 October keep the old rules: the slower off-road speed, and neither putting back nor catch-up. The WRONG WAY warning shows on every day.

21 October — A quicker start

• GO RACE gets you racing sooner. A GO RACE lobby now starts 8 seconds after the last driver joins its lobby, instead of waiting a flat 30, and never more than 30 seconds after it opened. Drivers who press GO RACE together still end up in one lobby; a driver on their own waits 8 seconds. RACE NOW still starts it at once.
• The welcome comes first. A new racer’s first GO RACE opens the welcome on the start screen, and CONTINUE enters the lobby, so the race can no longer begin underneath it.
• Your first set is a rookie set. A new racer is seated only with other new racers, and the computer drivers in that lobby are easy and medium only, so none of them can outrun your truck. The lobby and the standings call it a rookie tournament: finish it to unlock the day’s leaderboard. A rookie set is not ranked and never goes on the daily leaderboard; Final Standings says your next set counts. Reaching Final Standings, or a name saved from the leaderboard, ends it.
• One nitro canister in hand at GO. Every race starts with one nitro canister, and the screen flashes N2O! with the key or button that spends it. The computer drivers have none. Days raced before 21 October start without it.
• Corrected the multiplayer guide’s claim that the AI uses the same speed ceiling and track limits as you. A hard driver tops out at 468 units a second against your 450, and the AI has no off-road check.

19 October — A welcome for new racers

• Your first GO RACE now opens with a short welcome over the lobby while it fills: a picture of a race, the controls (the keys on a computer, the touch buttons on a phone or tablet), and that GO RACE is a 3-race tournament where the most points win. Press CONTINUE and it never shows again on that device.

19 October — Your place at the end of every race

• When a race of the set ends, the banner over the track now tells you where you placed instead of just “RACE OVER”: YOU FINISHED 2ND PLACE. NOW PREPARE FOR THE NEXT RACE!! It stays up for five seconds, so there is time to read it. After race 3 it gives your place alone, since Final Standings come next.

18 October — Three races, said up front

• The start screen now says GO RACE is a 3-race tournament, and the GO RACE lobby says you have to race all three to make the day’s leaderboard. Between races, the standings say how many races are left, and that staying to the end is what gets your set on the board. Sets with friends never go on the board, so their standings only count the races left.

18 October — Friends line up straight

• With two or more people in a race, everyone saw the other people’s trucks turned sideways on the grid, across the next lane, until GO. Every truck now faces down the straight from the moment the race appears, in every race of a set.

18 October — Half as fast again

• Everything is 50% faster. Top speed goes from 300 to 450 and a nitro boost peaks at 900 instead of 600, and the AI drivers speed up to match. Steering, acceleration, braking and grip all scale with it, so the truck takes the same line through every corner, only sooner. A boost still lasts three seconds, so it now carries you about six tiles instead of four. Days raced before 18 October keep their old pace, so their leaderboards stay comparable. The how to play, nitro, track limits and cornering guides give the new numbers.

18 October — AI drivers by name alone

• AI drivers no longer have their difficulty after their name: ZeroCool, not ZeroCool (hard). Each name still drives at the same level, and the multiplayer guide lists who is who.

18 October — Tyres that grip

• The truck grips the dirt. Until now it had no sideways grip at all: steering turned only the nose, and the truck slid on in its old direction until the throttle dragged it round, as if on ice. Now the tyres hold it to its nose up to a point. A hard turn at full speed still slides, but about 25° instead of nearly 60°, and the slide is over in about a quarter of a second instead of more than one, so corners are tighter and the truck goes where you point it. Nitro still overpowers the tyres in a hard turn. Days raced before today keep the old handling.
• Corrected the cornering guide’s braking numbers: the brake takes about 1,800 units per second off your speed and stops you from full speed in about a sixth of a second, twice what the guide said. The brake itself has not changed.

18 October — The race readouts along the top

• The lap counter, the clocks and the rest now sit along the top edge of the screen, level with the sound button. They used to float about a fifth of the way down, over the track ahead of you. The title and date are in the top-left corner, the lap, nitro and race counters in the middle (the lap counter is now properly centred), and the checkpoints and lap and total times on the right, clear of the sound button.

18 October — The same truck on every screen

• Your truck no longer drives faster on a faster screen. How quickly it picked up speed, braked and turned used to depend on how often your screen redraws: on a 120 Hz phone or a 144 Hz monitor it got up to speed in about half the time it took on a 60 Hz screen, and on a slow phone managing 30 frames a second it took twice as long. Now it accelerates and brakes the same on every screen and turns the same from 60 Hz up (within a few percent on a phone managing 30 frames a second), so a 120 Hz phone or a slow one drives like everyone else. On a 60 Hz screen nothing has changed.

18 October — Bigger, steadier touch controls

• Bigger buttons, and bigger places to press them. The on-screen buttons are drawn larger, and a touch no longer has to land on one: the lower part of the left side of the screen steers, split down the middle with no gap, and the lower part of the right side is gas or brake, whichever is nearer, with N2O on its own button above gas. The black bars beside the track on a wide phone count too.
• A held thumb stays held. A thumb keeps its button until you lift it or slide it onto another, even off the edge of the screen, and a thumb resting on the edge of gas does not slip onto the brake or N2O. Before, a steering thumb that slid off the edge let go of every button, the other thumb’s gas included, until it was lifted and pressed again.
• N2O keeps the gas. Sliding the gas thumb up onto N2O fires a boost without letting go of the gas, and a finger on N2O drives as well, so lifting the gas thumb while you hold N2O keeps you going.
• You can see and feel a press. A held button turns yellow, with a ring that shows round your thumb, and Android phones give a short buzz on each press (iPhone browsers cannot vibrate).
• A pinch or a long press beside the track no longer zooms the page or selects anything.

17 October — Engine sounds

• Every truck has an engine. A deep V8 rumble whose pitch follows your speed, changing up through the gears as you pull away and back down as you brake, with a rougher, wheel-spinning note off the road. It idles on the grid, and holding the gas revs it through the 3-2-1.
• The nitro whines as it kicks in, rising and falling with the boost.
• The trucks around you. You hear the three nearest other trucks too, quieter the further away they are, and on your left or right as they pass.
• The engines are made by your browser as you race, so there is nothing more to download before a race starts. They fade out with the music when the race ends.
• A sound button in the lobby and in the race switches the sound on and off: the music and the engines together. The game remembers your choice on this device, and the sound stays off while an ad plays either way.

15 October — A set of three races

• Three races, three tracks. GO RACE and Play with friends now run a set of three races in a row, on three tracks that are new every day and the same for everyone. Race 1 is the day’s track as before; races 2 and 3 are made from the date the same way. The same eight drivers race all three, each in the same truck colour, and the computer drivers keep their names and levels. Every race is still three laps.
• Points. Each race scores 10, 8, 6, 4, 3, 2, 1 and 0 points for first to eighth. A race ends when every human driver has finished, or 30 seconds after the first truck crosses the line; trucks still racing are placed behind the finishers by how far round they got. The server now follows every truck and decides the order, so every screen in the room shows the same results.
• Standings between races. After races 1 and 2 (and after any ad the platform you play on shows) the standings screen shows total points beside each driver’s place and points in the race just run, with a ten-second countdown into the next race. Races 2 and 3 line the grid up by the standings, the leader at the front.
• A red arrow bobs over your own truck for the first three seconds of every race, so you can find it on a full grid.
• Final Standings. After race 3: each driver’s points from every race, the total and the total time, a button to enter your name on the leaderboard, and PLAY AGAIN and MAIN MENU under it.
• The leaderboard ranks sets. Only GO RACE sets go on it, with the most points first and the lower total time on a tie; Play with friends sets do not. The server times every race itself and keeps each set’s result, so your browser sends only the name you type (the privacy policy and the terms say so too). From this day on the board shows sets only: single-race times set earlier the same day are no longer listed, and earlier days keep their boards ranked by time.
• A driver who leaves or whose connection drops keeps their truck in the set: the computer drives it to the end under their name and colour, and a dropped connection gets the truck and the points back when the game reconnects. Nobody joins a set once it is under way.

15 October — Eight trucks, tracks twice as long

• Races of eight. Lobbies hold eight drivers, in GO RACE and in Play with friends. GO RACE now waits 30 seconds for other drivers, then fills every empty seat with an AI driver: up to seven of them, CrashOverride, AcidBurn, ZeroCool, CerealKiller, LordNikon, PhantomPhreak and ThePlague.
• Longer tracks. Each day’s loop is now 32 to 44 tiles, about twice as long as before, and every one has a straight of at least two tiles before the start line, where the eight trucks line up two by two in four rows. Today’s track changed with this update, and today’s leaderboard started again with it.
• Four new truck colours, orange, purple, cyan and pink, in every art style. Ten nitro canisters on a lap instead of five, never on the starting grid.
• About one day in five, part of the track ran past the edge of the game world and an invisible wall stopped the trucks there. The world is now sized from each day’s track.
• AI drivers that got pinned against a stopped truck could sit there for seconds; they now back off and go round.

14 October — Night lights fixed

• At night, dark boxes showed around the trucks and their headlight beams wherever two lights overlapped. Lights now add up the way they should, so beams and glows blend smoothly in every art style.

13 October — Solid trucks

• Trucks collide. They used to drive over each other. Now a hit bounces both apart and costs some speed, the faster truck shoving the slower. The AI drivers bump too, and steer round a truck they are catching. A finished truck turns see-through so it never blocks the line.
• The starting grid is now two rows of two, with room between the trucks: four abreast, they had overlapped a little.
• A dropped connection no longer costs your seat. In the lobby it is kept for 30 seconds while the game reconnects; if the race starts meanwhile, your truck waits for you on the grid. A lone racer who drops mid-race gets their truck back too.
• Every translation had a second review, and some wording changed.
• Crossing the line at the end now says FINISH!, not VICTORY!: every finisher saw it, fourth place included.
• Fixed two trucks sometimes sharing a colour when a player joined a lobby after another had left.

13 October — Straight into a race, in eleven languages

• GO RACE. No name box any more: one button puts you in a lobby that waits 15 seconds for other drivers, then races, with AI in the empty seats. RACE NOW skips the wait. Private lobbies with invite codes are under Play with friends. You race as Player 1 to 4 until you put a name on the leaderboard, and under that name after.
• The game now speaks French, Italian, German, Spanish, Turkish, Brazilian Portuguese, Russian, Simplified Chinese, Japanese and Korean as well as English, picked from your browser’s language.
• A driver who leaves mid-race no longer vanishes: the AI drives their truck on, and gives it back if they reconnect. If the host leaves a private lobby, hosting passes on.
• Fixed trucks starting off the road, away from the start line: in the evening in the Americas the server laid the grid out for the next day’s track, and after a trip to the main menu the next race never received its starting positions.

September 2026

8 September — Site rebuild around real documentation

• Added this guide library: driving guides covering track limits, nitro timing, cornering, multiplayer, track generation and scoring.
• The contact form now sends a real message to a real inbox instead of pretending to. Previously it cleared the form and displayed an invented confirmation code without transmitting anything, which was indefensible; it is fixed.
• Removed an inaccurate claim from the front page promising on-screen touch controls on mobile. No such controls exist yet, so the page now says so plainly.
• Corrected the description of the surface system. Grip and speed-penalty values exist in the generator but nothing reads them while driving, so the site no longer describes a friction engine the game does not yet have.
• Unknown URLs now return a real 404 page with a 404 status instead of silently serving the home page.
• Every page now has its own title, description and canonical URL, and the content pages are rendered to static HTML at build time so they can be read without JavaScript.
• Added a sitemap, a robots file, and a favicon that is not a missing file.
• Rewrote the privacy policy to describe advertising cookies and third-party vendors.

July 2026

27 July — HTTPS everywhere

• The site is served over HTTPS via nginx with an automatically renewing Let’s Encrypt certificate. HTTP requests redirect to HTTPS, and the multiplayer websocket upgrade is proxied correctly.
• Removed the third-party Social Bar ad script. It was intrusive, and the site is better without it.

23 July — Deployment automation

• Production deploys now run from a GitHub Actions workflow rather than by hand.
• Rotated and untracked a leaked SSH key, and moved secrets out of the repository.

May – June 2026

• Landing page and contact form redesign.
• Repository cleanup: removed tracked virtual environments and stray platform files.

April 2026

Race feel and interface

• Renamed the game to Daily Dirt Rally.
• Repositioned the countdown and race notifications so they no longer sit on top of your truck at the moment you need to see it.
• Rebuilt the minimap with live player tracking, fixed the nitro counter and removed redundant surface labels from the HUD.
• Fixed the leaderboard close button returning you to the lobby correctly.
• Fixed player positions failing to reset when restarting a race from the leaderboard.
• Replaced the wall-collision response with an outward nudge, eliminating the oscillation that could pin a truck against a barrier.
• Corrected multiplayer truck rotation, which differed between AI and human vehicles.
• Added background music for the lobby and for races.
• Major physics rework, plus a batch of leaderboard fixes.

March 2026

• Pixel-accurate collision. Track boundaries moved from rectangles to per-pixel masks generated from the tile artwork, so the visible edge became the real edge. World dimensions were harmonised at the same time.
• Daily leaderboard. Times are filed by track date and reset with the track. Added a profanity filter for names.
• AI opponents. Three difficulty profiles that drive the track with the same physics as human players, and can take over a vehicle if its driver disconnects mid-race.
• Multiplayer. Four-player rooms with invite codes, room management, client socket integration and correct grid spacing.
• Backend physics moved to an arcade driving model, with an AI steering overhaul.
• Blocked joining a lobby whose race is already in progress.
• Restored and expanded the automated test suite across both frontend and backend.

Earlier

The project began as a phased build: procedural track generation, then the truck and its physics, then race timing and checkpoints, then multiplayer, then AI. The phase reports from that period are in the repository rather than here — this page starts where the game became something people other than its author could play.