Build. Evolve. Compete.

How do you want to race?

Evolve a car from scratch or put your best creation up against drivers from around the world.

  1. 1
    Train

    Evolve a population of cars, generation by generation, until one is fast.

  2. 2
    Verify

    Submit your best chassis — the server re-runs it on official roads to confirm the score.

  3. 3
    Compete

    Race verified champions from around the world and climb the rated leaderboard.

The full loop

How GenCars works

Five ideas tie the whole game together — from a blank population of shapes to a ranked global record.

1 · Solo Train

You don't design a car directly — you tune a genetic algorithm and let it evolve one. Each generation, a population of random-ish triangle chassis with wheels drives across a procedural road; the cars that get furthest are bred (crossover + mutation) into the next generation. Fitness is simply distance travelled.

2 · One-time Verify

Training happens entirely in your browser, so before a car counts for anything competitive, the server re-simulates your best genome itself on official roads to confirm the score. That verified genome becomes your champion — the one thing "Compete" and the Gauntlet both use.

3 · Head-to-head Compete

Your champion is matched against another player's (or, if the pool is thin, a house bot) on a private road neither of you has seen. Furthest distance wins and ratings move on a standard Elo scale.

4 · Weekly Gauntlet

This one isn't a match you start — it's automatic. Every time you verify a champion, it's also replayed solo against this week's shared public road and your distance is posted to the Gauntlet leaderboard. There's no separate "enter" step; re-verify anytime to try to beat your own score before it resets Monday.

5 · Periodic Seasons

Everyone starts at 1000 rating. It moves with every ranked race and slowly decays if you go quiet for more than a week, so it always reflects recent form. Every so often the season ends: the top 10 are frozen into a permanent Hall of Fame, then every rating is compressed back toward the middle — not wiped — so the new season starts closer together instead of a full re-grind.

Before you tune the panel

Strategy tips

The Hyperparameters and Genome panels have a lot of dials. Here's what each one is actually doing.

Shape & balance

Heavier (denser) triangles low in the chassis lower the center of mass, which keeps a car from flipping on steep tiles. Wild, spiky shapes can reach further per bounce but tip over more easily.

Wheels

More wheels add stability and grip but also weight to haul around. Wheel placement matters as much as count — evolution has to discover both together.

Mutation vs. elitism

High elitism keeps your best cars safe but can stall progress; high mutation explores wilder shapes but can wreck a good design. Selection bias controls how strongly winners get to breed. There's no fixed best setting — it depends on how stuck the population looks.

Road difficulty

The road starts flat and gets steeper and choppier the further you go, so late-run distance is a much harder test than early distance. A car that stalls at tile 50 every run probably needs a stability fix, not just more generations.

About

GenCars is a small genetic-algorithm sandbox: you don't drive, you breed. Evolution runs entirely in your browser; the arena and weekly Gauntlet are backed by a server that keeps every verified score honest by re-running it itself. No two roads a champion faces in the ranked arena are known in advance to either player.

Copy State

Select all and copy this JSON to restore the run later.

Load State

Paste a previously copied state JSON to restore it.

🏆 Global Leaderboard

#PlayerDistanceW/L/DDate

Restricted access

🔧 Admin Panel

Players
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Clear cached progress-bar and qualification replay samples while preserving matches, ratings, champions, genomes and road seeds.

Cleared space becomes reusable by PostgreSQL. This does not delete race history.

Season management
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Reset every player's rating to 1000 and clear W/L/D.
Danger zone
Permanently delete every player, champion, match, replay, save, ban, season, maintenance run, and prior audit entry. Schema migrations are preserved and a fresh season is created.

Use after incompatible code or ruleset changes. This cannot be undone.

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My Profile

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My saved cars (up to 5 slots)

Save up to 5 evolution runs. Load one to continue training, then submit its best car to the Arena.