Local businesses on the map
Signboards of real shops, pubs and workshops along the streets. Quests and delivery jobs that lead to them. Run a business in Bydžov and want it on the map? Leave a note on the ideas board (in Czech).
Nový Bydžov · the first town
Your town is the racetrack.
Jízda Bydžovem is a racing game that runs in your phone's browser. The map is the whole town of Nový Bydžov in Czechia: streets, the square, parks and 3,922 buildings from real data. At real scale, with the real roofs.
- No install
- No sign-up
- Free
The link hry.zitbydzov.cz/bydzov leads to one shared room. Everyone who opens it drives around the same town with you. The game itself is in Czech for now.
Your phone is the car
No app, no account. A few seconds after you open the link you're sitting in a car on a street in Bydžov.
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Open the link
On your phone, open hry.zitbydzov.cz/bydzov. Any ordinary browser will do.
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Drive
Throttle, brake, left, right and handbrake keys sit at the bottom, the map with a camera above your car at the top. An arrow at the top points where to go.
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A TV if you want one
On a TV or computer, open hry.zitbydzov.cz/bydzov/tv to see every car. Up to four people can drive at the TV on the keyboard. Start your own room from a phone and friends join with a QR code or a short room code.
What's in the game today
You can try everything in this section right now. The pictures are screenshots from the game.
The whole town, not one circuit
The playing area is 2.7 × 2.4 km: the historic centre, the northern quarters, Metličany across the Cidlina river and the south of town. Streets, parks and paths come from OpenStreetMap. Building heights, roof shapes and roof colours come from ČÚZK, the Czech land survey, so the town hall looks like a town hall and a tower block like a tower block.
The overview button lifts the camera to show what's around. You can drive through a park, not through a house.
Challenges against ghosts
Challenges start at the Marian column on the main square. The server times every run and keeps it as a ghost. You race up to 50 ghosts of other drivers and see how many you beat at the finish.
- Everyone drives the built-in challenges in the same base car, so times compare.
- After the finish, go again or send a friend a link to the challenge.
- Live start: up to eight drivers set off on the same route at the same moment.
Garage and tuning
Six cars, and each drives differently. The sports car is the fastest on a straight but slides. The Trabant turns on a sixpence. The pick-up handles parks and grass best. The van is heavy and shoves other cars aside.
The custom car tab has twelve sliders: top speed, acceleration, brakes, grip, slide, steering lock, weight and more. Plus eight paint colours.
Your own routes
In the route editor you tap out a circuit or a sprint on the streets of Bydžov. The game works out the gates, the length and a name from the streets.
- A route is always driven in the car you made it with, tuning included.
- You can share it only after your own first valid run, so nobody gets a challenge that can't be finished.
Experiments
A town that's alive
We're trying these out. Switch them on in the car menu (tap the car card above the steering keys). They run on your phone only; other players and the TV see none of it. What works will stay in the game for good.
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Night: lamps, windows and headlights -
Dusk and rain -
Snow on the roofs and the road -
Delivery runs between real places
- Traffic Up to 14 cars drive on the right, slow down for corners, give way at junctions and stop for you. Hit one and it's knocked aside.
- Pigeons Flocks on the square and in the park by the church. Come at them fast and they take off, circle for a while and land again.
- Pedestrians People walk the pavements and the square and look into shop windows. They jump out of a car's way. You can't run anyone over.
- Time of day and weather Day, dusk, night and dawn by the sun over Bydžov. Rain, fog and snow. Only the look changes, not the driving.
- Deliveries Pick up at one place in town and drop off at another before the clock runs out. Points for time left, multiplied by your streak of on-time drops. Late, and the streak is gone.
- Drift points Points for drifts, near misses and knocked-over bins and lamps. A crash into a wall wipes the open chain.
What we're working on
None of this is in the game yet. It's here so you know where the game is heading and can tell us what you think.
More towns
Scripts built the map of Bydžov from OpenStreetMap and ČÚZK data. We want to add more towns the same way. Suggest the next one on the ideas board.
FAQ
Do I need to install anything?
No. A browser on your phone is enough. The game loads from the link like any web page.
Do I need an account?
No. Without a profile you appear on the leaderboard as "Řidič #n" (Driver #n). The game may offer you an anonymous profile with no name, e-mail or password. You don't have to take it.
How much does it cost?
Nothing. There are no payments and no ads in the game.
How many people can drive at once?
In the shared Bydžov room up to 16 cars drive and four more people wait for a free car. At the TV, four more can drive on the keyboard.
Do I need a TV?
No. Your main view is on the phone. The TV shows the whole race and is handy when you play together in one room.
Is the game in English?
Not yet. The buttons and texts in the game are in Czech. The driving needs no words: the green key is the throttle.
What if my phone goes to sleep or loses signal?
When you come back, you're back in your car. A dropped connection doesn't end the game. When latency is high, the game limits sensitive inputs so the car doesn't run away.
Is this GTA on a phone?
No. There's no shooting, and you can't run over pedestrians, they always jump aside. It's racing through a real town, where you can also take on a delivery job or just drive around.
Where does the map come from?
Streets, parks and place names come from OpenStreetMap (© OpenStreetMap contributors, ODbL). Building footprints, heights and roofs come from ČÚZK (© ČÚZK, CC BY 4.0). The villages that belong to the municipality, such as Zábědov or Skochovice, are not on the map yet.
What is this game called?
Jízda Bydžovem is the town drive. The TV race in the catalogue is still called Rallye.
Take a drive round Bydžov
Open the link on your phone. On a computer, send it to yourself, or open the game on a TV and join with the code.