Yes. Free, no ads, no signup and nothing to install. It runs in the browser tab you already have open.

Can I race my friends?

Yes. Press Race with friends on the menu and you get a link. Send it to whoever you want on the grid and they open it in their browser — no signup, no download, and nothing to install. The browsers talk to each other directly over WebRTC, so there is no server in the middle. Bots fill any seat nobody claimed, and if somebody drops out mid-race a bot takes their kart so the standings stay honest.

Does Kartzoom work on a phone?

Yes. Hold anywhere on the right of the screen to accelerate, slide your left thumb to steer, and use the corner button to drift. The heads-up display is laid out so that nothing you need to read sits under a thumb.

How does drifting work?

Hold the drift button while turning and the kart hops into a slide. The longer you hold it the more charge you build, in three tiers, and releasing spends the charge as a mini-turbo. The sparks off the rear wheel change colour with the tier, so you can see what you have earned without looking away from the corner.

Is it the same farm as Splatbarn?

Eight of them, in summer instead of snow. Bramble the sheep, Kettle the chicken, Dozer the cow and Truffle the pig are the same models that fight over flags in Splatbarn, joined by a goat, a duck, a donkey and a goose.

Kartzoom — a free browser kart racer

Kartzoom: a sheep at the wheel of a white kart racing wheel to wheel with a goose, a duck and a chicken on a dirt circuit

What is in it

Drift and mini-turbos. Hold drift through a corner and the kart hops into a slide. Charge builds in three tiers while you hold it and pays out as a boost when you let go. The sparks off the rear wheel change colour with the tier, so you can read what you have earned without taking your eyes off the corner exit.
Eight items. A cowpat to drop, an egg to throw forwards or backwards, a rooster that homes in on the kart ahead, a feed bag for speed, a hay bale that bounces whoever hits it, a scarecrow that blocks one hit, a thunderstorm that squashes everyone in front of you, and a runaway tractor for whoever is last.
Six circuits, in two cups. Home Paddock holds the three on the farm itself and Long Paddock the three past the boundary fence — a millpond, a tidal marsh and a canyon with a river in it. Sunflower Circuit is wide and fast; Muddy Bottom is narrow with two hairpins and a chicane; Frostfield Loop is the old snow farm, where everything slides.
Eight drivers, eight handling models. Kettle the chicken is furious off the line and tops out early. Dozer the cow is the fastest thing in the field and will move you out of the way. Truffle the pig holds a slide longer than anyone. Bramble the sheep is good at everything and spectacular at nothing. Nanny the goat sticks to anything, including ice, and loses every straight. Puddle the duck is slow on land and the only one that does not slow down in the water. Barrow the donkey is as heavy as the cow and can actually corner, with a dreadful start. Bluster the goose wins the run to the first corner — and then there is the corner.
A scoreboard that means something. Position is measured in metres of track, not by who last crossed a trigger, so two karts a metre apart are ordered correctly. Best laps and best finishes are saved per circuit.
A minimap and a wrong-way warning, a pause that actually pauses, and a results table with every driver's race time and best lap.

What it looks like

A grid of eight karts under the red start gantry on Sunflower Circuit, a smiling sun overhead — Sunflower Circuit, on the grid. Start accelerating on the last beat of the countdown for a launch turbo.

Close up of a kart on the start line with a sheep sitting in the seat — Bramble the sheep. Good at everything, spectacular at nothing.

Muddy Bottom circuit: a brown dirt track with rutted lines and a hedge line in the distance — Muddy Bottom. Narrow, two hairpins, and a surface that does not forgive.

Frostfield Loop: a snow-covered circuit with pines and a pale sky — Frostfield Loop, the old snow farm, where everything slides.

Racing your friends

Press Race with friends on the menu and Kartzoom opens a room and hands you a link. Send it to anyone — they open it and they are in the lobby, picking a driver. No installs, nothing to sign up to before you play, and no server in the middle: the browsers talk to each other directly.

Everybody picks a different animal, because the colour on the minimap and in the standings is how you find yourself in a pack of eight. Bots take any seat nobody claimed, and if somebody closes their laptop halfway round a bot takes over their kart rather than the field silently shrinking — their place, their colour and their lap count all survive. Somebody arriving late is caught up to the race already in progress instead of being made to wait.

How it drives

The handling model carries the kart's velocity separately from where its nose is pointing, and grip is expressed as how fast the tyres can drag one round to meet the other. The angle between the two is the slip angle, and it is the whole game: near zero is a clean racing line, a third of a radian is a committed drift. Nothing about a slide is faked on top of a simpler model, which is why the camera can follow the direction of travel rather than the nose — a drift is something you watch the kart do.

Every rule in the game — the drift tiers, the item table, the lap counter, the bot driver — lives in a shared engine layer that has no rendering code in it at all, so it can be tested outside a browser. The bots hold the same controller a player does. If the handling is unfair to them, it is unfair to you.

The lobby

The Kartzoom menu: Race and Race with friends buttons, a driver carousel with a pig, a sheep and a chicken, a stat bar chart, and three circuit cards — Press **Race with friends** and it hands you a link. Whoever opens it is in the lobby; bots take the seats nobody claimed.

Controls

Keyboard: arrows or WASD to drive, Shift to drift, Space to jump, E to use an item, Q to look behind, Escape to pause.
Gamepad: right trigger to accelerate, left stick to steer, a shoulder button to drift, A to jump.
Touch: hold anywhere on the right to accelerate, slide your left thumb to steer (slide it down to brake). The bottom-right corner drifts when held and jumps when tapped.
On the grid: start accelerating on the last beat of the countdown for a launch turbo, the way a kart racer should. Too early and you bog down.