Larry Zwick‘s 1980 game, Auto Racing, is like an early, prototype version of Codemasters‘ famous Micro Machines.

It’s an overhead racing game for one or two players.

In the two-player game each player is awarded points for getting ahead of the other car (by touching the edge of the scrolling screen as you race ahead, just like in Micro Machines), or by not crashing (ie. allowing the other player to crash instead if you).

In the single-player game the race becomes a time trial test, with the aim being: to beat the current record.

There are five different courses in total, with the higher-numbered ones being more difficult to drive.

Auto Racing is a pretty good game – especially two-player. It’s a little weird in that you don’t accelerate – the game does it for you. You simply steer and brake (and hope for the best). But for a very early racing video game it is reasonably playable and somewhat fun.

More: Auto Racing on Wikipedia