Race The Sun

Race The Sun

191 ratings
Race The Sun - Basic Guide - some Tipps and Tricks
By SacredSheep
This is a little guide to explain the basic mechanics of the game and provide some useful Tipps to survive longer when chasing the sun.
   
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Basic Mechanics
First of all, this is my first guide, and English isn't my native language, so please forgive me for my mistakes.

Race the Sun

In this game you control a light solar-powered aircraft through a world full of different obstacles while trying to outrun the sun.
The sun is about to disappear beyond the horizon, and you have to be really fast chasing it, else you will lose your source of energy - the sunlight.

Basics

At first you can only navigate left and right, later you also get the ability to jump.
When doing a fast direction change ( heading left for some seconds and then turning right, and the other way around) you can do a Barrel Roll. I found it easier to do that with a keyboard than with a controller.

Every obstacle casts a shadow. If you remain to long in it, you will slow down, since you don't absorb the sunlight anymore. And the slower you move, the faster the sun sinks.
If you hit an obstacle (and don't die from it), you will also slow down, and besides that lose some of your Multiplier (around 5).

You get multiplier by collecting 5 Tris. A Tri is that blue triangle you can collect. With more multipliers your score increases faster.
Later in the game with higher levels you will have an increased base-multiplier. Your multiplier can't decrease under that number.

You can get until Level 25. You unlock levels by finishing the Challenges. Theres always a 1-Point, a 2-Point and a 3-Point challenge, and as soon as you finish one it gets replaced by a new one.
New levels unlock items, upgrades, decals for your aircraft, and a higher multiplier to begin with.

At lvl 1 you need 3 challenge-points to get a new level, this gets up to 8 (?) for the last levels.
As far as i know, the challenges do scale with the level a bit, but dont get always harder. I had a challenge, "hit 5 Boosters in the Air in a round" around lvl 10, and later "hit 4 Boosters in the Air in a round" around lvl 18.

Around the map there are some portals that warp you into a different User-World (right now its always Void). When leaving them you get to the end of your actual area.
Edit: useful note by ChowMains:
Originally posted by ChowMains:
It should be noted that you have 'The Void' noted as the free Tris map, but that isn't always going to be like that, as community maps are added, the world portals will teleport you into random community-maps, and NOT just the Void.

The world randomizes every 24h (you maybe already have seen the huge "world reset" counter ingame) by shuffeling the different subregions and maybe adding new ones.

When leveling up, you will unlock the Apocalypse Mode. Its the Hardcore-mode of this game. The sun sinks faster and there are way more obstacles and explosions and stuff. In general, it's pretty crazy, but also really fun.
If you think the Apocalype highscores are fake, watch this guy doing 137 million
nyrlthtp [www.twitch.tv]
or
369 million [www.twitch.tv]
Crazy stuff, right?
Items and Upgrades
Items

Speed Boost - it's the first item you unlock. When you collect it, you will get a short boost, which accerlerates your aircraft and causes the sun to move upwards for a moment.
It's essential you hit enough Speed Boosts to keep the sun over the horizon.
Hitting 2 boosts in a row wont add the duration but refresh it.

Jump - second item you unlock. If you collect it, it doesn't trigger right away but adds to your inventory. Normally you can only have one at once, but you can take the Jump Storage Upgrade to have up to 3 in your inventory. If you acitvate the Jump (spacebar or A button on controller), your ship will lift into the air and then fall back slowly. This mechanic is helpful to avoid different obstacles or avoid a situation that would have killed you. If you have more than one Jump in your inventory, you can perform double or triple jumps to get even higher.

Emergency Portal - last Item you unlock. If you collect it, it gets added to your inventory like the Jump, but you cant use it actively. It gets triggered when you collide with an obstacle and the collision would have killed you (if you wouldnt have got killed, the Portal wont trigger). It will save you from dying and reset your position upwards into the air (similar to being mid-air in a Jump).

Upgrades

Magnet - The Magnet lets you collect Items and Tris from a greater distance, so you don't have to actually touch them anymore to collect them. With this item you can even collect some Tris that are floating in the air without using a Jump.

Jump Storage - Increases the maximum number of Jumps you can hold to a maximum of 3 (2 at first Level).

Battery - Increases the time you can stay in the shadows before you start to lose speed. Very helpful for big Clouds, paths with a roof or when the Sun gets at a low position and the shadows get really long.

Portal Storage - Increases the maximum number of emergency Portals you can hold to a maximum of 3 (2 at first Level).

Turning Jets - Increases your ship's reactivity when changing directions (Left <-> Right)

Turning Jets only has one level, the other Upgrades all have two levels.
You get up to 3 Upgrade-Slots for your Aircraft when leveling.

From my opinion, Portal Storage isn't worth the Slot, because the Item doesn't appear that often and you should try to avoid any collisions anyway. Also I find the other Upgrades more important.
The other 4 Upgrades are all ok, choose what you want, I take Magnet, Jump Storage and Turning Jets most of the time.
Tipps and Tricks
  • for collecting Items (except Tris), it actually doesn't matter how far above them you are, as long you aren't too far away to the left or right from them
  • if you have your maximum number of jumps stored, it's usefull to jump right before you run into another jump-Item, this way you get to avoid some obstacles, get a short overview over the area while maintaining maximum Jump storage
  • this way you can also perform a quadra jump, hitting clouds shouldn't be a problem anymore
  • triggering an Emergency Portal stops your movement for a moment, but doesn't stop the time / the sun.
  • be careful with windmills, sometimes if you crash at the buttom , you get spawned right into one of the wings at the top
  • finding a wall sideways to you makes the collision tasks very easy, just bump in it multiple times (since it isn't a frontal crash, you will only slow down )
  • if you have problems with the "only move left/right" task, use the keyboard instead of a controller and remember, you are allowed to move straight forward and to use jumps
  • for the challenge "collect x Boosters while in Air" , Tris do not count
  • since clouds cast huge shadows, you should avoid them when at the open plane between the regions
  • the white explosing at later areas will blind you for a moment when traveling through them. Avoid them or use a jump to not run into the next random obstacle.
  • "The Void" essentially gives you free Tris and most important resets the sun (of course you can still die in it)
  • in Apocalype mode, as far as i know, the areas don't get harder after area 6
  • in Apocalype mode, the Birds sometimes drop solid blocks, be careful
33 Comments
MutantVampire 24 Jun, 2023 @ 12:12pm 
Correction: Although collecting multiple Speed Boosts successively merely resets the duration of the boost, it appears that the sun-rise is hardcoded into the boost - so you'll still get extra sunrise from doing so.
AstroBoyBD 12 Oct, 2020 @ 7:43am 
my highest region was 11
Xiphosura 20 Jul, 2020 @ 7:15pm 
You can chain barrel rolls by tapping the arrow keys when already barrel rolling, say you were turning right and barrel roll left, if you hold right a bit while rolling then tap left and repeat you can chain rolls as long as you have space.
Zen 14 Feb, 2020 @ 12:32pm 
"for collecting Items, it actually doesnt matter how far above them you are, as long you arent too far away to the left or right from them"
If you use the geometry bug mentioned below, you can get so high up as to not be able to collect any boosters
Rytsar 16 Oct, 2018 @ 6:42pm 
theres a bug when hitting geometry at certain angles that shoots you into the sky never to come down. It can be pretty disasterous and seems to be quite common.
pnott 4 Mar, 2018 @ 11:52am 
FYI "tipps" is spelled "tips".
hook 23 Mar, 2017 @ 12:50am 
Thank you for that infomation :)
QuantumSlime 15 May, 2016 @ 9:53am 
Its not the level editor guide I'm looking for, But now i know how to level up cuz i never noticed that before.
LightningHF 19 Feb, 2016 @ 2:06pm 
For the barrel roll tasks, I found it pretty hard to do until I found exactly when you've been going to one side long enough for it to happen. Just lean towards one side until you see some bright particles on the edge of the wing closest to the ground. Then lean towards the opposite side. Try not to let go of the one you're leaning towards at first, because the ship becomes upright and the barrel roll doesn't trigger.
SacredSheep  [author] 27 Aug, 2015 @ 11:02am 
Added that, thanks for the hint.