Play Jovial Race (Unl) Online

Jovial Race is an unlicensed NES game that never saw an official release through Nintendo. It was developed and published by a small, now obscure studio, and it feels like a product of that late NES era when developers were pushing the hardware in strange, sometimes unstable directions. It exists in that peculiar space of unofficial cartridges, often traded among collectors or found in mixed lots at flea markets.

You control a small, brightly colored car on tracks that defy physics, with sections that twist and invert without warning. The main goal is simply to finish each chaotic lap while the computer-controlled opponents frequently spin out or get stuck on the erratic geometry. Signature mechanics include navigating sudden track inversions that flip the screen, managing a very loose and slippery handling model, and avoiding obstacles that seem to pop in from nowhere. The pacing is frantic and unpredictable, the difficulty stemming more from the game's own janky systems than from intentional design. It feels less like a refined racing game and more like trying to drive a toy car across a funhouse floor that's actively trying to throw you off.