Grab your board
the pipes are free · the speed is not
Coming soon to iOS Android Steam
Runoff is a racing game about standing up. You ride a thruster board through the storm pipes under the city — huge, empty, sun-striped pipes where every wall is a road — with one finite energy core deciding how much speed you can afford. Everything in the game is drawn, not photographed: hard sun, flat ink, printed concrete.
Ride the economy
There are no lap times to shave here, only a battery to argue with.
Stand on it
Two thumbs drive two thruster pods — push both to fly, stagger them to carve. No grip, no brakes worth the name: the board goes where your thrust says, and the rider on it leans, crouches, and throws an arm with every choice you make.
Charge the mat, spend the sluice
Green mats on the ceiling charge your core if you're smooth enough to hold them. Black-and-yellow sluices on the floor spend it for a shove. Every straight is a fork: ride high and bank, or drop low and burn.
One core, no mercy
Thrust, boost, and stability all pull from the same finite core. Overdraw it and the board goes dark mid-corner — a brownout at 300 km/h is a lesson you only need twice.
Eight circuits, one ladder
You climb them in order. Each one takes the bore you just learned and breaks one assumption about it.
The Bowl
Storm runoff under the street grid — high noon through the skylights, two big bowls and a waist. The one circuit that forgives a bad line, which is why it goes first.
The Interceptor
Victorian brick, a century older and half the bore — sodium lamps, and it never stops turning. Half the width means half the margin, and the walls arrive faster than you plan for.
The Outfall
The last mile, out past the shelf — a glass roof under the sea, with the reef grown over it. Light comes through water here, so the racing line reads differently than it is.
The Aqueduct
Out of the ground at last — a channel on piers at golden hour, open to the weather. The first circuit under open sky, where a horizon at speed is a distraction all its own.
The Culvert
Freight bore, still in service — overcast steel, oil on the racing line, and the ladder's longest straight. The straight is the trap: it is exactly long enough to overdraw on.
The Cistern
A covered water store the size of a cathedral — glazed tile, floodlights, no sun, no forgiveness. Nothing outside to navigate by, so you ride it on memory.
The Trunk
The city's own main, glazed and slung eighty metres over the street. The pipes kept you secret; this one is a shop window, with the whole town under the glass.
The Vacuum
A glass tube in orbit, sanctioned and televised — the city a lit smear under the floor. Every rule you learned in the pipes still holds. It just holds at a speed the pipes never allowed.
Pick your rival off the grid
Four riders hold the Pipe League field, slowest first. Here is the trick: the rider you take is the rider you do not have to beat. Take the fastest board and coast — or leave VIRIDIAN on the grid and earn it.
VERMILION
S. Drake
Thirty years riding this pipe. Slow, immovable, and always where you wanted to be.
MALACHITE
I. Solis
Farms the ceiling for a living. Rides high, hoards core, never panics.
AMBER
T. Netzer
Courier turned racer. Fast, chatty, and commits to lines that do not exist.
VIRIDIAN
D. Frost
Sanctioned-circuit rider slumming it. The fastest thing in the pipe.
Why this game exists
Runoff started on a summer holiday, as a present for one very specific player: someone whose opinion I value, who bounced off every other game this studio makes. The whole story — the dark racer it forked from, the verdict that flipped the register, and what "make it bright" actually cost — is in the journal: Sample size of one.
Runoff is built the 0n1 way: no account, no ads, no analytics, fully offline — the only network feature is optional head-to-head racing with a friend on your own local network. The fine print lives in the Privacy Policy and Terms of Use.
Coming soon to iOS Android Steam