Design document · Trolley Turbo
Rules and balance sheet
Made in October 2026 from the game's code, as there was no written design doc: race rules, driving and boost values, item odds by place, the friends' speeds and coin rewards.
Trolley Turbo: rules and balance sheet
There was no written design document for this game, so this sheet was made in October 2026 from the game's own code (its Unity scripts). It records the rules and numbers exactly as the game plays them. Speeds are in Unity units a second.
A race
| Wagons | 6: you and five friends. In an online race, friends join by QR code or room code and bots fill the empty spots |
| Laps | 3 |
| Tracks | Sofa Speedway (living room), Kitchen Chaos (kitchen), Backyard Blast (garden) |
| Next track | Opens when you finish in the top 3. Online races give coins but no unlocks |
Driving (the same for every wagon)
| Top speed | 17 |
| Boost speed | 25, about half as fast again |
| Acceleration | 14 |
| Off the road | 62% of normal speed |
Boost
- Each fire extinguisher on the track gives one boost charge, and you can hold 3. Extinguishers come back a few seconds after someone takes one.
- One boost lasts 1.3 seconds; firing again while boosting adds another 1.3.
- You start every race with 1 charge. Bots start with 0 or 1.
- Spinning out (from a Foam Blast, a Water Balloon or Marbles) stops a boost.
Toy boxes: who gets what
A toy box gives a random item, and racers further back get the strong forward items more often:
| Item | What it does | Chance in 1st place | Chance in last place |
|---|---|---|---|
| Foam Blast | Flies ahead, homing a little on the racer in front; a hit spins them out for 1.2 s | 23% | 48% |
| Water Balloon | Lobbed in an arc; spins out everyone near where it lands for 1.2 s | 18% | 29% |
| Marbles | Dropped behind you; a racer who drives into them spins out for 1.1 s | 32% | 13% |
| Soap Slick | Dropped behind you; a racer who drives onto it slides for 1.6 s | 27% | 11% |
The five friends
How fast each friend drives, as a share of the top speed, before corners and catching up:
| Track | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sofa Speedway | 94% | 91% | 89% | 86% | 83% |
| Kitchen Chaos | 98% | 95% | 93% | 90% | 87% |
| Backyard Blast | 102% | 99% | 97% | 94% | 91% |
Friends slow to 86% of that on corners sharper than 60° and to 93% on corners sharper than 40°. A catch-up rule eases them off when they are far ahead of you and pushes them harder when they are far behind.
Coins
| Place | 1st | 2nd | 3rd | 4th | 5th | 6th |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Coins | 100 | 70 | 50 | 30 | 20 | 10 |
Wagon paints: Fire Red is free; Sky Blue and Sunny Yellow cost 150; Grass Green and Grape Purple 250; Mango Orange 400.
What the numbers do
- One boost covers about 10 units more than driving at top speed, a gap of roughly 0.6 seconds. Three saved charges are worth almost 2 seconds, so when to spend them matters more than how many you grab.
- The items help whoever is behind: a racer in last place gets the Foam Blast twice as often as the leader, while the leader mostly gets things to drop behind. Races stay close.
- Each track's friends are faster than the last. On Backyard Blast the fastest friend is a little faster than your top speed, so you can only beat them with boosts and items.
- All five paints cost 1,200 coins together: twelve wins, or 24 third places.