The City
This is actually an earlier version of Fallhaven City. It still has the same landmarks such as the dealership, the park, and the largest man-made structure in all of Fallhaven - just without the Fallhaven part or the streetlights, since this was developed months before Crashout even had concept art.
Gameplay
On the surface, the gameplay is rather simple. You drive around the city in a sporty - but admittedly rather heavy - car collecting coins, before the timer tells you otherwise and the game stops.
However, there are a few little details and secrets alongside this to find during gameplay, with a short but tense story to bring a point to the timer and the gameplay that i was unable to bring to the game before the project's deadline.
Backstory and Lore
During the gameplay, you collect as many coins as you can before the timer runs out. But why?
Originally, the game had a planned cutscene which would play before the gameplay actually begins, in which an air raid siren would sound as the player's vehicle rapidly drives deep into the city, after watching a large missile shoot out of a silo and flies up to the sky. The player car screeches around buildings and slams on the brakes just outside of a bunker, but is then turned away and shown that there is a toll to enter, since they cannot fit everyone inside at once.
After this cutscene, the gameplay would begin, and you would need to collect 200 coins to enter the bunker, before the three minute timer ends and a missile violently strikes, destroying the city and everything around it - and if you couldn't get the coins and enter the bunker in time, you would also have been destroyed. This would have been shown in another cutscene.
Alternatively, if the player did successfully collect the coins and enter the bunker in time, there would have been a cutscene where the player car drives in, the screen shakes and fades to black, and you would then see the player car driving back out - though in an apocalyptic version of the city.
So, was there really a good ending? No. Nuclear war is serious. Either you are destroyed without realizing, or you live to suffer in a shell of the world you used to live in - and that was the point of the game's backstory. Only problem was, all those cutscenes were really out of range for the deadline - so i cut them from my plan and instead told myself i would write the backstory elsewhere in the future - and here we are.
Details and Secrets
The game has many little details, all of which were taken onto Crashout later on, with some even being expanded on.
The "Janetors"
The Janetors are a government-style fictional organization seamlessly integrated within the world's population, formed by a sentient mimic which goes by the name of "Janet". The Janetors received the name as they worship and work for Janet, and also because they will commonly breach any civilian's privacy to whom they believe is breaking one of their laws, which are not enforced by the state, and attack when nobody else is around. This is not openly mentioned during gameplay, other than the ominous billboards.
Nuclear Autosports
Nuclear Autosports are suspected to be the main cause for the atomic blast at the end of Race the Sun, due to their suspicious advertisement techniques and the company name.
It was rumored for years prior that the company may possess nuclear weapons or general explosives due to their complex history and their neglect to answer questions on related topics, alongside any customers questioning what their vehicles are actually powered by since the cars are powered seemingly by magic - just covered up by the sound of a typical car engine. Furthermore, anyone who has seen or found out what the car's internals actually are made from, were never heard from again.
Billboards
Besides the Janetors, these are localized to a single area in Race the Sun. In this case, these are just a way to make jokes and give the player a good chuckle as they drive past - or they are a sort of inside joke within a friend group of mine.