Home › The games › Crossed Tracks
🛤️ Crossed Tracks
Memorise the switches on a ladder of rails taller than the screen while the camera descends it — in the dark the rails vanish — and be first to touch the cart that leads to the highest sign. Each round: more switches, less time.
- Up to 4 players
- Party game
- In your browser, free
- With friends or against bots
A lottery ladder inside the mine
The layout is amidakuji, the Japanese ladder lottery: five carts at the bottom, five rails going up, and switches joining neighbouring rails. A cart that reaches a switch always crosses to the rail beside it and keeps climbing.
At the top of each rail there is a sign with points. The highest one glows gold; the negative ones, marked with a skull, take points away from whoever arrives there. Each round puts more negatives on the table: in the last one there are two negatives, one zero and two positives — a small one and a big one.
Look, memorise, and be fast
Each round starts with the ladder on display for a few seconds. Then the mine lights go out and the rails and switches disappear: only the carts at the bottom and the signs at the top remain. The entire path has to be in your memory.
In the dark, everyone taps a cart, and the choice is exclusive: first to touch keeps it. Knowing the right path does not help if someone gets there first. Anyone who does not choose in time is given a free cart at random.
Each round is harder
- The ladder gains switches: four in the first round, nine in the last — and it is taller than the screen.
- The time to memorise shrinks: the camera descends from the signs to the carts in eight seconds at the start and six at the end.
- The signs get more tempting and more dangerous: the biggest is always +5, and the negatives run from −1 to −5.
What never increases is ambiguity: there are never two switches at almost the same height on neighbouring rails. The difficulty comes from the number of paths and from the clock, not from a drawing that is impossible to read.
The camera tells the round
The mine does not fit on screen. The camera starts at the signs and descends slowly down the ladder to the carts — that trip is the time you get to memorise. In the dark it stays on the carts, and during the ride it climbs along with your cart to the signs.
Points and tie-breaks
Five rounds, close to two minutes. Each cart leaves at its own moment and climbs at its own speed, so no two carts ever cross the same switch together. Signs pay from left to right, and your score never drops below zero. Most points wins; on a tie, whoever reached the top sign more often, then whoever hit the skull least.
Against the bot
The bot remembers the right path with a chance that depends on its level and that falls as the ladder grows, then taps the free cart with the best sign according to what it remembers. The hard one is fast: against it, hesitating costs you the golden sign.
More party games on Arcade Zone
-
🥔 Hot Potato
The bomb has a fuse nobody can see — between six and fifteen seconds. Pass it on before it goes off in your hands.
-
🌈 Neon Sequence
Memorise the colour sequence and play it back. It grows by one colour every round — and whoever gets it wrong or takes too long is out.
-
⚡ Instant Shock
A quick-draw duel for up to four. Pick your target in secret, wait for the signal and fire — but firing early costs you the whole round.