HaberDashers

Our verdict

HaberDashers shrinks kart racing to toy size. Graduate students at SMU Guildhall built it around tiny people who live in the walls of a house and race on a child's wooden toy tracks while the humans are out, an idea the team credits to The Borrowers and Studio Ghibli's The Secret World of Arrietty.

Every race has eight racers, mixing human players and computer opponents, over three laps of roughly five minutes. Up to four players can share one PC in split-screen, and Steam's Remote Play Together lets friends join from elsewhere. Drifting tightens your turns, different surfaces slow you down by different amounts, and on-track pick-ups give one-time weapons and abilities. You can also assemble your car from at least four bodies and four wheel types, with paint jobs and decals, and pick one of four original characters.

It is free and lists full controller support. The project took a team of more than 50 students one semester, and the store description still calls it pre-alpha, so expect a short student game rather than a polished release. Valve has not rated it for Steam Deck, and the minimum specification asks for 8 GB of RAM and a GTX 770 graphics card.

Choose it for a free, light-hearted split-screen session in a setting you will not find in the bigger licensed racers. For a fuller free game, start with SuperTuxKart.

Based on the documented features of the PC version, not a hands-on review or score.