Grab your board
the pipes are free · the speed is not
Streaming it? Let your audience pick your rider and settings ↓
Out now on Mac · coming to iOS Android
Streaming Runoff?
Let your audience pick your rider and settings
Put the pre-race picks to a vote: the rider you play as (you race the other three), the difficulty (MELLOW, STANDARD or HEAVY) and, in free run, the circuit. VIRIDIAN on MELLOW is a cruise; DRAKE on HEAVY is a fight.
- Free beta access on iPhone or Android now.
- Gameplay clip, logos and thumbnail art in the press kit.
- Send your channel link: we reply within a day or two.
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.
One energy core Spend your speed
Lap times matter. The battery decides them.
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
Mats and sluices come in pairs, on opposite walls of the pipe, four or five times a lap. Each pair asks the same question: climb and bank charge, or stay low and spend it. Rich boards go faster; greedy boards go dark.
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.
VERMILION's longboard, from above
How you ride it
Two thumbs, two halves. Each thumb is a stick for its own side of the board, and each side carries a main at the tail, a brake at the nose and a pair of flank thrusters.
- Both thumbs forward Both mains fire. Straight ahead.
- One thumb forward That side pushes and the board swings away from it: left forward turns you right.
- One thumb back That side's nose brake bites, so you slow and swing toward it: left back turns you left.
- One forward, one back Spin on the spot.
- A thumb pushed outward That side's flank fires and the board slides the other way. Inward does nothing.
There's no grip, so turning only aims the board; then you push. Every thruster drinks from the one core. On a gamepad, the two sticks are the two thumbs.
Ten pipes Storm drain to orbit
Ten circuits, climbed in order. Each one takes the pipe you just learned and breaks one thing you assumed 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.
8Ball
The first pipe ever dug to be raced: two mains crossing at one box, with an interlock that answers to whoever reaches it first. The only rung where the fastest line is something you take off somebody else.
The Breach
A main nobody has maintained in thirty years, with four spans of roof lying on its floor. Mind the ceiling. The last rung is the one place where the pipe itself has given up.
Four riders Pick your rider
Pick a rider and you race the other three. The roster runs slowest to fastest, so the pick sets the race: ride as VIRIDIAN, the fastest in the pipe, and the field gets easier; ride as DRAKE and VIRIDIAN is the one to catch.
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VERMILION
S. Drake
Thirty years riding this pipe. Slow, immovable, and always where you wanted to be.
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MALACHITE
I. Solis
Farms the ceiling for a living. Rides high, hoards core, never panics.
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AMBER
T. Netzer
Courier turned racer. Fast, chatty, and commits to lines that do not exist.
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VIRIDIAN
D. Frost
Sanctioned-circuit rider slumming it. The fastest thing in the pipe.
Sample size of one 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, and it plays fully offline. Only two things ever touch a network, and both are optional: head-to-head racing with a friend on your own local network, and, on iPhone, iPad and Mac, Apple's Game Center, if you're signed in to it. The fine print lives in the Privacy Policy and Terms of Use, and controls, saves and help are on the Support page.
Or test the phone versions early: on iPhone and on Android.
Out now on Mac · coming to iOS Android