City Car Driving: Stunt Master

There is no fixed track. You get a car and an open 3D city, and the city is the course: drive where you like, drift through corners and look for places to pull off stunts. Stunts earn points.

Two things work against you. The car can be wrecked, so hitting things too hard ends the fun, and there are police around the city. The Poki page says no more than that, so treat both as reasons to drive with some control rather than flat out everywhere.

The controls are keyboard only, which is why the game is listed for computers only. W A S D or the arrow keys drive the car. Space is the handbrake, F fires the nitro and C changes the camera. The remaining keys are the details of a real car: Q and E for the left and right indicators, L for the headlights and I to switch the engine on or off. Esc pauses the game.

• Learn the handbrake before the nitro. Space is what turns a corner into a drift; nitro on F only adds speed that you then have to control.

• Try every camera with C early on. A different view can make it easier to judge gaps and ramps, so settle on one only after trying them all.

• Remember that the car can be wrecked. A stunt that ends in a wreck costs you the run, so build speed where there is room to recover.

• Keep Esc in mind. The pause is one key away whenever you need to stop and look at the city.

• The indicator, headlight and engine keys are not needed for stunts, but they are there if you want to drive the city like an ordinary car for a while.

Players on a computer who enjoy exploring a city at their own pace, practising drifts and finding their own stunt spots instead of following a set race.

— Computer only: Poki does not list a phone or tablet version, and the game needs a keyboard.

— There are plenty of keys to remember at first; the essentials are movement, Space and F.

— The game opens on poki.com, where Poki may show ads around it.

• Marble Run 3D →

  The other racing game on the site, built on steering and speed along a track instead of an open city.

• Rainbow Obby →

  Its Car mode adds ramps and jumps, the same appeal as stunts in an open city.