Every car carries a harpoon. Swing off the poles, yank them into the wall, rip the armor off their doors and bolt it onto yours.
TOWLINE is a free vehicular combat game you play in your browser, in alpha. Every car carries a harpoon winch. Hold it near a light pole to swing around at full speed, hook another car to yank it into a wall, or hook a car that is already smoking to rip a part off it and bolt it onto yours. Four modes ship in the first build: CRASHBALL, The Circuit, The Long Haul and Derby. Play alone against bots, or host a room and send up to three friends the code.
Captured in-game from the build that is live right now. Click a shot for full size.
CRASHBALL: the armored ball at center pitch, goals lit orange and blue
Pick a chassis: the Stray is light and quick and lives on the swing, the Brawler sits in the middle, and the Hauler is a rolling wall that wins every head-on. Every one of them has boost, a jump, a roof-mounted machine gun, a slot for a special weapon, and the harpoon.
The harpoon does four things. Near a light pole it locks on and swings you around it; let go and you fling out the other side. On an enemy it yanks them toward you. On an enemy that is already damaged it rips a part off: armor, their weapon, or a full tank of boost. With nothing in reach it drops an anchor, and at speed that whips your car around 180 degrees.
Two against two with a giant armored ball and two goals, and every car is armed. Drive through the ball to shoot, hook it and drag it, or blow the goalie out of the way. Wrecked cars are back in three seconds, and a tie goes to overtime: next goal wins.
Vesper Kane ran the last all-night tow rig in the Flats until the league crushed it on live television. Chapter one, Last Call, is two events: Opening Night against five rookies, then The Compactor, a garbage truck with a crusher for a bed whose armor plates shrug off guns until you hook them off.
Keep the rig rolling down an endless highway through five waves of raiders, with a scrap stop halfway where each driver picks an upgrade, and a boss at the end. The route, the raider mix and the boss change every day, and everyone in the world drives the same one.
Six cars in a pit walled with tires and shipping containers. After 25 seconds a ring of fire starts closing in. Friendly fire is on. The last car running wins.
Earn scrap from every match and spend it on rigs: a Plated Bumper for armor, a Turbo Coil for faster boost, a Long Winch for a longer harpoon, or Ram Spikes for double ramming damage. Paint it in eight colors, plus one you can only earn in The Circuit.
Mouse and keyboard on desktop. Everything below is shown in the game too.
| Gas and brake | WS |
|---|---|
| Steer | AD |
| Boost | Shift |
| Jump | Space |
| Harpoon (hold to swing) | Right clickE |
| Machine gun | Left clickF |
| Special weapon | Q |
| Ball cam in CRASHBALL | C |
| Pause | Esc |
A controller works for everything: right trigger gas, left trigger brake, A jump, B boost, right bumper harpoon, X fire, Y special.
The latest changes, newest first. Tell us what you think in the Discord.
TOWLINE is here in alpha: three chassis, a harpoon that swings, yanks and rips parts off, and four modes: CRASHBALL, The Circuit, The Long Haul and Derby.
Free in your browser. Play the bots, or host a room and send up to three friends the code. Tell us what works in the TOWLINE channels on Discord.
