Cash And Crash

Drive fast, loot hard, and outrun the law. A sprawling, 3D arcade game where the city is your playground and survival is just one drift away.

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Inspiration

We wanted to bring back the nostalgic, high-visibility arcade energy of classic driving games like Crazy Taxi and Need for Speed, but rebuilt for the modern web browser. We were inspired by the challenge of creating a fully interactive, lightweight 3D world with physical vehicle dynamics, escalating tactical law enforcement, and zero download requirements—delivering instant, adrenaline-fueled gameplay right in the browser.

What it does

Cash & Crash 3D is a high-octane web-based heist and getaway game. Players navigate a high-performance getaway sports car through four massive districts—a dense downtown skyscraper metropolis, a lush central park, rural sand dunes, and a busy container seaport.

The goal is to collect floating cash bags scattered across the city while outmaneuvering an increasingly aggressive police response. As your wanted level rises from 0 to 5 stars, the law deploys faster interceptors, armored SWAT vans, and eventually a spotlight-equipped police chopper firing roof-mounted turrets. Players must drift, jump, and bait police cruisers into crashing into buildings and each other, all before making a final dash to the harbor helicopter extraction pad.

How we built it

  • Graphics & Rendering: Built entirely using Three.js to handle the web-based 3D graphics, lighting, and shadow systems.
  • Physics Simulation: Integrated Cannon-es to run deterministic vehicular physics, ensuring "solid-strike" momentum transfer during police collisions and realistic tire-to-ground alignment.
  • Programming & Tooling: Structured with TypeScript for robust, typed component logic, and bundled using Vite for lightning-fast hot-reloading and lightweight production builds.
  • UI & HUD System: Styled with responsive, glassmorphic CSS overlays featuring wanted level indicators, speedometers, dynamic damage flashes, and a real-time 2D canvas minimap.

Challenges we ran into

  • Vehicular Ground Alignment: Getting the car wheels to realistically trace the uneven landscape of sand dunes, park slopes, and bridges without clipping or floating in the air required fine-tuning raycasters and rigid-body constraints.
  • Aggressive AI Pathfinding: Designing a police pursuit AI that chases the player dynamically, rams effectively, and scales in intensity without dragging down frame rates in a large scene was a complex balancing act of distance checks and steer vectors.
  • Web Performance Optimization: Managing over 100 3D models (skyscrapers, trees, container ships, barns) along with active physics actors required aggressive mesh pooling and frustum culling to keep gameplay running at a buttery-smooth 60 FPS.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

  • Procedural City Layouts: Successfully designing distinct urban, rural, park, and harbor zones within a single cohesive coordinate space.
  • Fluid Physics-HUD Integration: Creating a cohesive gameplay experience where high-speed impacts trigger physical screen shake, UI damage flashes, and tactical feedback instantly.
  • Satisfying Chase Loop: Developing a loop where players can outsmart cops by baiting them into walls, yielding spectacular multi-car pileups that feel incredibly satisfying.

What we learned

  • Web Physics Tweaking: We learned the intricacies of tuning physical friction, suspension damping, and angular momentum in 3D physics engines to make steering feel arcade-like rather than overly simulation-heavy.
  • Dynamic Texture & Light Management: We mastered working with low-overhead light sources and glowing materials to maintain a vibrant, cyber-arcade aesthetic without hitting performance ceilings.

What's next for Cash And Crash

  • Multiplayer Heists: Transitioning the game to a multiplayer experience where players can form a getaway crew, divide the police focus, and share the loot.
  • Procedural Level Generation: Introducing endless city generation where every heist features different street grids, obstacle placements, and extraction points.
  • Car Customization: Implementing a garage system where players can spend their stolen cash on engine upgrades, armor plating, and cosmetic wraps.
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