Shiftmere

Shiftmere is a drag racing game where your engine is the rhythm. Every thump you hear is a beat, and on the crank dial a white arm sweeps to a spark at the same moment: fire on the beat and that stroke is power until the next one. The beat quickens as the revs climb, so the race gets harder the faster you go; shift on a beat and the tempo drops for the next gear. You choose your shift points by how fast a beat you can still hold. Each of the five nights by the lake brings an engine with its own rhythm: one even thump, a limping twin, a triple with a loud first beat, close pairs and a six with a rest you must not fire into. Fifteen strips against named rivals, medals by time, a ghost of your best run, a daily strip and a workshop where gearbox, flywheel and spark trade speed against an easier rhythm. Timing is judged from your input's own timestamp and the sound is scheduled on the audio clock; a calibration page fixes slow headphones. It plays in the browser by touch, mouse, keyboard or gamepad, in English or Bulgarian.