Tether Drift
Tow a heavy slug on an elastic line and whip it through drifting junk. Shatter debris, scoop the glowing cores, dodge mines, and never wrap the line round a pylon or it snaps.
- Year
- 1981
- Era
- Vector
- Genre
- Vector / Physics Arena
Free, no sign-up. Keyboard, touch or gamepad.
How to play
- Arrows or WASD to thrust, Space to reel in the tether.
- Touch: drag anywhere to steer, hold REEL.
- P to pause.
On touch
- Drag anywhere to steer.
- Hold REEL to pull the tether in.
Every run starts on the title screen. Pause any time with P or the pause button; calm mode removes flashes and screen shake.
Designer’s note
A slug on an elastic line is a pendulum you control from the wrong end, which takes a minute to learn and a long time to master. Wrapping the line around a pylon snaps it, so the physics punishes carelessness without a single rule being explained. Vector graphics were a hardware limit once; here they are the point.
The Vector era, 1977–1982
Glowing phosphor lines on black glass: wireframes, starfields and one bright dot doing something impossible.
High scores
The top ten runs are saved in this browser with your three initials. Nothing is uploaded, so clearing site data clears the table.
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In the workshop
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Coming soon