How do you play 100m Sprint?
After the gun, alternate the left and right buttons as fast as you can. Each press is one stride, and the faster and more evenly you tap, the faster your sprinter runs and the lower your 100m time.
It plays like the classic arcade track and field games where you hammer two buttons in turn. The camera looks across the track from the far side of the stands, and you are the red sprinter in lane 4. Computer sprinters fill the other seven lanes; in two player mode the blue sprinter in lane 5 is 2P. The top center shows your race clock and a progress bar with a dot for every runner, and the top left shows your current place, speed in km/h and a rhythm bar.
Hold a phone upright and the track splits into two rows. The bottom row follows you and the top row follows the fastest runner other than you, so you can see exactly how far ahead or behind you are.
How should I tap to run fastest?
Alternate left and right more than 11 times a second with an even gap between presses. That gives the top speed of 11.6 m/s (about 41.8 km/h), and with a quick reaction you can break 10 seconds.
| Presses per second | Top speed | Rough time |
|---|---|---|
| 6 | about 25 km/h | 15 seconds |
| 8 | about 31 km/h | high 12s |
| 10 | about 37 km/h | around 11 seconds |
| 11.5 or more, even rhythm | about 41.8 km/h | high 9s to low 10s |
The rhythm bar shows how even your gaps are. Bursts followed by pauses shrink the bar and can cost up to 20 percent of your speed even at the same tap count. Stop pressing for more than 0.4 seconds and your sprinter starts to slow down.
Why does my sprinter stumble?
Pressing the same side twice in a row, or pressing both buttons almost together (within 0.045 seconds), makes you stumble. While stumbling your presses are ignored and you lose a lot of speed.
| Mistake | On screen | Result |
|---|---|---|
| Same side twice | Same side! | About 0.4 s stumble, lose 15% speed then slow down |
| Both buttons at once | Off beat! | About 0.26 s stumble, lose 8% speed then slow down |
| No press for 0.4 s | none | Gradually slow down |
Rubbing two fingers across both buttons at once counts as off beat, so that trick does not work. The foot shaped pads on screen flash white on the side you should press next, which helps when you lose the order.
When is it a false start?
Pressing after Set but before the gun, or within 0.1 seconds after the gun, is a false start. The first false start earns a yellow card warning and everyone returns to the blocks; a second one by the same runner is a red card and disqualification.
The start follows a real race: On your marks, Set, then the gun. The pause between Set and the gun changes every time, from 1.2 to 2.3 seconds, so you cannot count the beat and press early. A reaction faster than 0.1 seconds is treated as a false start just like in real athletics, because nobody can hear the gun and move that fast. Computer sprinters sometimes false start too and get warned. The result screen shows your reaction time from the gun to your first stride in thousandths of a second.
How fast are the three computer levels?
Easy runs between 12.3 and 14.2 seconds, Normal between 10.9 and 12.3 seconds, and Hard between 9.88 and 10.95 seconds. Each race gives the seven sprinters slightly different target times, reactions and acceleration.
| Level | Computer times | To win |
|---|---|---|
| Easy | 12.3 to 14.2 s, sometimes stumble | About 8 steady presses a second |
| Normal | 10.9 to 12.3 s | 10 or more presses a second |
| Hard | 9.88 to 10.95 s | 11 or more a second, no stumbles, a quick start |
The stadium board shows the wind, from 0.6 m/s against to 1.9 m/s behind. Every 1 m/s of tailwind makes all runners about 0.6 percent faster.
How are times and places decided?
The moment each sprinter crosses the line is measured to a thousandth of a second and shown rounded up to a hundredth, as in official races. If two times match to the hundredth, both are shown to the thousandth to separate them.
When you get within 3 m of the line the action slows down so you can watch your dip break the tape. After the race a photo finish appears, built from a single slice of the finish line over time. Time runs along the horizontal axis, so the first runner home stands on the right, and the scale at the bottom shows the exact time. Then the top three step onto the podium for gold, silver and bronze medals, and the result screen lists all eight times.
| Your time | Result screen comment |
|---|---|
| Under 9.90 s | World record legs |
| Under 10.40 s | National final pace |
| Under 11 s | Track team ace |
| Under 12 s | Sports day relay anchor |
| Under 13.5 s | One of the fastest in class |
Tips for a faster time
- Listen for the gun. Pressing as soon as you see Set is the easiest way to false start. A reaction around 0.15 seconds is plenty.
- Use two separate fingers, not your wrist. On a keyboard give each index finger one key, A and D or ← and →, and the gaps stay even.
- Use the first ten strides to find your beat. Once the rhythm bar fills green, holding that beat to the line beats frantic bursts.
- Let go for a moment after a stumble. Presses during a stumble are thrown away, so restarting on an even beat recovers faster.
- On phones tap near the screen edges with both thumbs. Tapping near the middle can land on the wrong half and cause a same side mistake.
Controls and two player mode
- Keyboard: alternate ← and → or A and D. Holding a key down counts only once. Space or Enter starts a race and Esc returns to the menu.
- Mouse: click the left and right halves of the screen in turn.
- Phones and tablets: tap the left and right halves of the screen with two thumbs. The foot pads in the bottom corners show which side you pressed.
- Two players: 1P runs in red lane 4 with A and D, 2P runs in blue lane 5 with ← and →. The screen splits into two rows, the bottom following 1P and the top following 2P. On phones the bottom half is 1P's left and right pads and the top half is 2P's, and in portrait the top row turns upside down for a player sitting opposite. Normal level computers fill the other six lanes.
Your personal best and gold medal counts are saved only in this browser and never sent to a server. The sprinters, crowd, scoreboard, track, starting gun, footsteps and cheering are all drawn and synthesized in code.