COLORACE Review

One of the most magical things that only a video game can do is draw players into a transcendental state of pure reaction. So much happens so quickly that you stop thinking and just start doing. Puzzle games are usually great at creating this kind of instinctual play over time, but what's so wonderful about Colorace is that it brings you to that place almost instantly.

Colorace is an endless racing game; a genre so ubiquitous on mobile we've run out of jokes about how ubiquitous it is. Players control a high-speed ship and steer it between three separate lanes. As they propel forward, they will regularly enter color gates that turn their ship red, yellow, or blue. After passing through a gate, players must then collect dots of the matching color and avoid all others or they'll crash. Occasionally the road will shift, like squeezing players into two lanes instead of three and making split decisions even more tense, but the game mostly sticks to turning up the tempo of this familiar rhythm.

That simplicity is what makes Colorace so marvelous, though. With relatively few distractions, the fingers can react faster than the conscious mind can process the information. There's something exciting yet oddly freeing about letting your hands take control and just hoping for the best. The game's super sleek presentation also does wonders at sucking players into its world. The clean lines and bright primary colors shine in the geometric digital landscape as triangular mountains pulse in the distance to the beat of the surprisingly catchy techno music. It's like playing Audiosurf with the TRON: Legacy soundtrack.

On paper, nothing about Colorace is really that spectacular, and it's possible others may not click with its vibe and be left with just another endless racer. But if you can get on the same wavelength as its sublime synthesis of music, color, and motion, you're in for a good trip.