Formula Traffic Racer

Formula Traffic Racer summary

Formula Traffic Racer provides you with an exciting, rare opportunity to hit the streets in a single-seater open-wheel race car, where you’ll push it to its limits on public highways packed with unsuspecting everyday traffic going about their daily commute.

You’ll need to combine all of your best driving (and drifting) skills to weave your way through narrow, unpredictable gaps at insane speeds while the rear end gets lively and slides around, making things even more nerve-racking.

Choose from three game modes of varying difficulty, then see how long you can survive before showing off your new high score to your friends.

You’ll need to drive as fast as possible while maximizing near-misses, earning as many bonuses as you can, and avoiding your protruding wheels from scraping the vehicles of other innocent drivers.

While the basic ‘don’t crash’ concept sounds simple, it’s much more exciting, challenging, and fast-paced than it sounds, especially if you want to start landing impressive scores.

Formula Traffic Racer controls

PC/laptop/Chromebook

• W/Up arrow – Accelerate
• S/Down arrow – Brake
• A/Left arrow – Steer left
• D/Right arrow – Steer right
• F – Nitro (boost)
• C – Change camera view
• Space – Handbrake/e-brake

Mobile/tablet (iOS/Android)

• Press the on-screen touch controls

How to play Formula Traffic Racer

Getting started

When you launch Formula Traffic Racer for the first time, you get to choose a gift of 10,000 credits or watch an ad for 20,000 credits.

After that, you’ll hit the highway immediately. Don’t panic – there’s no pressure for your first run. Spend it checking out the basic controls, then get comfortable with how the car handles.

Also, try toggling through the camera views (C key) and pick the one that suits you best. Most players find that the cockpit view, or third-person behind the car, provides the best visibility for what’s up ahead.

Remember, the goals are simple: stay alive, drive as fast as you can (without crashing), and get a feel for threading the traffic without scraping or hitting anything. You’re rewarded for risky driving, but quickly punished for any mistakes.

When you start driving quickly, you’ll soon see your damage bar (the red bar at the bottom of the screen) begin to fill. When it reaches the right side, it’s game over.

After that, you’ll then be taken to the main menu for the first time, where you’ll find Settings (sound), Controls (button reminders), Upgrades (performance), and Wheels (visual swaps). Your bank balance is also shown in the top-right corner.

Below the bank balance, you’ll see Daily Rewards, which provides an additional bonus of 1,000 CR (eventually increasing to 10,000 CR, depending on how many consecutive days you return). If you want even more free cash, you can grab an extra 1,000 credits anytime by watching an ad at the bottom center of the main menu.

Use the left/right arrow keys on the sides of the screen to browse through the formula racers in the showroom. You can test drive any of these by watching an ad, but you won’t be able to access tuning or upgrades until you’ve purchased them.

You can also consider your first upgrade purchases at this point (we’ll dive into them in more detail shortly), but be mindful of how you want to spend your cash. While it can be tempting to upgrade your basic starter car with a fresh set of fancy aftermarket wheels, they’re definitely not going to be the best investment if you want to earn more cash quickly.

When you’re ready to hit the highway again, pick a mode (One Way, Two Way, or Time Attack).

Then choose one of the locations on offer:

• Night City
• Morning City
• Snow Lands

Basic tips

Watch out for the turn signals on the traffic to try to predict their upcoming lane changes, although they’ll often do so at the last second and suddenly dive in front of you when you least expect it.

Your damage bar will creep up with each hit, depending on how hard you crash. Once you see smoke coming out of your formula racer, be careful, as you’re basically on your last life. Treat every car like a concrete wall at that point!

If you’ve enjoyed the crashes and crave some BeamNG-style chaos, you’ll want to check out Car Crash Test: Abandoned City for the most satisfyingly realistic crash physics from a browser game.

Mobile tips

If you’re playing on mobile, we recommend starting in the simpler One Way mode first. This way, you can get used to the touch controls, as trying to do this while dealing with Two Way’s traffic gets spicy fast. Camera choice is also even more important because your steering inputs are shorter and more reactive.

If you want more great browser games that are optimized for Android and iOS devices along with on-screen touch controls, be sure to check out our Mobile Games collection.

Maximizing the bonuses

Bonuses are vital to maximizing earnings. Close passes keep your streak alive, but a few seconds of safe driving will reset it to zero. Don’t panic, though, as this is all added up at the end. Maximizing each of these helps get impressive final scores (and cash!)

These are the bonuses you’ll need to consider:

• Total distance – how far you managed to travel before getting totaled
• Near miss – the number of times you narrowly avoided the traffic cars without scraping/hitting them
• Keep above 100 km/h – timer-based (seconds) for how long you spent above this speed
• Opposite direction – time spent driving the wrong way (seconds) spent driving into oncoming traffic, only available in Two Way mode

Mastering the physics

Once you get the hang of weaving through the traffic, you’ll soon realize that the rear-end of the formula racer is prone to stepping out, as you can see in the above screenshot. This makes it unpredictable and often causes the rear to tap other cars, resulting in additional damage.

Thankfully, this is where you can put the advanced techniques you’ve learned from drifting games like Drift Hunters MAX to good use.

If you hold down the direction arrows to turn rather than quickly tapping them when you need to make sudden moves, the rear slides out, and you need to “catch” it by using countersteer techniques. This is where you’ll steer in the opposite direction to pull the rear of the racer back to safety, rather than it hitting the traffic.

Formula Traffic Racer game modes

All of the game modes feature four lanes of traffic, but they each have their own level of difficulty.

One Way

This is the same mode you started with, where all the traffic drives in the same direction. This is the best learning mode for building consistency while you build up your confidence. Earnings are based on your distance, number of near misses, and time spent above 100 km/h.

The earning potential is lower than Two Way if you’re purely wanting to earn credits, but it’s the best and easiest way to practice.

Two Way

You have two lanes of oncoming traffic and two lanes traveling in the same direction. While this is the hardest mode, it also has the best money-making potential.

The ultimate earning strategy is to spend as much time as possible in the oncoming lanes to bag the opposite-direction bonus, then dip back into safe lanes when you’re inevitably going to crash. The opposite-direction counter pauses when you’re playing it safe, but then resumes when you return.

Be warned, a hard enough head-on crash can end your run instantly, and you’ve often only got milliseconds to react. The traffic can pop out of nowhere (you’ll see!), and since it’s a formula race car, you don’t have the steering lock to save it like you would in a drift car. You’ll want to check out our drifting games selection if you’re after big steering lock and angle.

Time Attack

This is most similar to One Way mode, since all the traffic is heading in the same direction, but this time you’ll race against the clock and get as far as you can before the timer (top left) hits zero.

There’s no online multiplayer functionality in Formula Traffic Racer, but there are some great alternatives if that’s what you’re after. For this, Drift King is the top pick among Drifted fans, since you can actually head to lobbies and drift, battle, and tandem with (or against) your friends and other players in the free online mode.

Alternatively, if you want to have fun pulling off crazy stunts online with your friends in an open-world environment, Madalin Stunt Cars 3 might be a better choice.

Formula Traffic Racer car selection

There’s a total of six Formula-style open-wheel race cars available in the showroom. The starter car is free, with prices ranging up to 30,000 credits for the most expensive option.

Early on, you’ll need to decide whether to start saving for your next ride or upgrade your starter car to its full potential. Even the starter car can compete with the best when fully upgraded, so there’s no need to buy more cars unnecessarily.

In this game, we recommend focusing on the formula car you prefer the look of, rather than feeling you need to save for the most expensive one right away. If you look at the attributes, you’ll see that even the cheaper cars have some positive specs, and these will only improve as you upgrade.

If you’ve been playing for a while and enjoyed Formula Traffic Racer but wish there were more vehicle options, you’re in luck! The same team that made this game has also created a motorbike version. Bikes not your thing? They’ve also created Crazy Traffic Racer, which offers a selection of road cars from Porsches to a Lambo Veneno.

Customization and upgrades

Wheels are the only available visual customization options. While they can look awesome, they won’t affect how the car handles.

If you want more tuning and customization options, consider the Drift Hunters series. The classic game is the perfect place to get started, and we’ve even created a Drift Hunters tuning guide for an in-depth explanation on how each setting changes the feel and handling of your drift car.

Performance upgrades

• Acceleration
• Handling
• Brakes
• Max speed
• NOS/nitrous

Each category (except NOS, which is a one-off purchase) has five upgrade tiers, each priced at 1,000 credits. Prices don’t scale up, so maxing out each category only costs 5,000.

For us, NOS is a must-have upgrade and a top priority. While it has a limited supply, it recharges quickly and can be massively helpful for quickly getting yourself out of difficult situations. 

Don’t go hunting maximum speed upgrades before you’ve gotten used to the game physics and handling, as this will only make things more difficult as you fight to handle the crazy intensity.

Formula Traffic Racer advanced tips & tricks

Different camera views can transform the experience

If you’re after the most realistic experience, the cockpit view is the most immersive and intense. The third-person view provides the best visibility and can often be the most useful when you’re starting. We’re not a big fan of the aerial view, especially at high speeds, as it’s difficult to see what’s coming.

Use micro steering inputs rather than holding

It’s much more effective to use small taps left and right rather than holding the button (unless it can’t be avoided).

When the rear end starts stepping out, use a drifting-style countersteer by briefly steering in the opposite direction to regain control. Given these physics, you’ll often find yourself clipping the traffic even when the nose clears, so stay aware of the whole car.

Master the side-scrape

If a crash is unavoidable (it happens), try to brush or scrape along the side of a vehicle rather than ramming it head-on. This minimizes the spike in damage or the risk of your ride being totaled.

Remember, once you’ve got smoke coming out the front, even the slightest side scrape can finish your run, so you need to be super careful at this point.

Don’t be afraid to use the brakes when necessary

It’s wise to lift off the throttle sometimes and even apply the brakes in the most difficult situations when you have no other choice. Remember, even if you lose your high-speed bonus for a moment, you can quickly regain it.

Use nitro strategically to get out of tricky situations

Sometimes it’s better to use nitro to escape danger at the last second when committing to a tight gap, then let it recharge. Don’t use it too much, as constantly boosting into blind traffic will make things even harder.

Formula Traffic Racer FAQ