Lawnmower: Mortal Race

Lawnmower: Mortal Race is an off-road racing game where players control lawnmowers to compete on various tracks, with the goal of completing each course under a specified target time. Part of the Lawnmower Game series, it features a behind-view perspective and direct control mechanics, offering fast-paced vehicular challenges across dynamically developed circuits.

Lawnmower: Mortal Race: A Cult Classic of Surreal Persistence

Introduction: The Absurdist Grand Prix

In the vast, often absurdist landscape of indie gaming, few franchises have cultivated such a dedicated, if bewildered, following as the Lawnmower Game series. From its humble, almost janky beginnings, it has evolved into a sprawling meta-franchise spanning pinball, horror, space combat, and political satire. Against this bewildering backdrop stands Lawnmower: Mortal Race (2022), the series’ flagship entry into the structured arena of timed racing. It is not a game about narrative epics or graphical fidelity. Instead, it is a pure, distilled test of zen-like focus masquerading as chaotic demolition. This review argues that Mortal Race‘s significance lies not in its technical prowess—which is minimal—but in its successful crystallization of a specific, punishing gameplay loop into a compelling, meme-worthy experience. It represents the peak of a peculiar design philosophy: that profound challenge and simple joy can emerge from a lawnmower hurtling through a surreal gauntlet of saws and botanically armed flora.

Development History & Context: The Lunkka Multiverse

To understand Mortal Race, one must understand its creator, Tero Lunkka, and the Valkeala Software ecosystem. The original Lawnmower Game (2017) was a bizarre, minimalist web-based toy—a simple 3D mower in a small garden. Its charm was its crude simplicity and physics-driven silliness. This seed grew into a protean franchise where Lunkka and collaborators like Blackthug would rapidly prototype and release dozens of spin-offs, often with titles like Lawnmower Game: Find Trump or Save Daddy Trump 3, suggesting a development cycle driven by whimsy, meme culture, and a “let’s see what sticks” approach.

Mortal Race was released on June 1, 2022, for Windows (and later Nintendo Switch) by the publishers Valkeala Software and Nerd Games. It was built in Unreal Engine 4, a significant step up from the earlier, likely browser-based prototypes, allowing for more stable 3D rendering and physics simulation, even if the aesthetic remained intentionally low-poly and cartoonish. The technological constraint was not one of power but of vision: the game’s visual language is deliberately basic, prioritizing clear readability of hazards (bombs, moving saws, shooter-plants) over artistic complexity. This places it firmly in the early 2020s “surreal indie” bracket, alongside games that embrace a “so bad it’s good” or “intentionally janky” aesthetic as a core part of their identity. Its release was not a headline-grabbing event but a quiet drop into the vast Steam algorithm, relying on its existing niche fanbase and the curiosity of players drawn to its bizarre store description.

Narrative & Thematic Deep Dive: The Philosophy of the Cut Grass

Lawnmower: Mortal Race possesses a narrative in the same way a sprinting track possesses a story—it is a sequence of cause and effect, but any “plot” is entirely player-generated. The official “story” provided on Steam is a mission statement: “Your mission is to complete different tracks under limited time which is 60 seconds… avoid from walling out of track.” There are no characters, no dialogue, no cutscenes. The protagonist is an unseen force controlling a lawnmower; the antagonists are the environmental hazards themselves.

This vacuum of traditional narrative forces a thematic reading onto the mechanics. The game is thematically about pure, relentless persistence. The 60-second timer creates an immutable urgency. The health system, where contact with traps reduces your health, introduces the consequences of failure. The ultimate goal—reaching the finish flag—is not a story climax but a mechanical conclusion. The “theme” is the absurd heroism of repetitive, precise action in a hostile, nonsensical world. The tracks are not racing circuits but survival courses. The lawnmower, a mundane tool of suburban order, becomes an agent of chaotic destruction, mowing down not grass but a surreal bestiary of explosive flora and machinery. It’s a silent, single-player commentary on the Sisyphean task, where the “rock” is a spinning saw blade and the “hill” is a narrow, trap-laden path.

Gameplay Mechanics & Systems: The Dance of Death and Grass

The core gameplay loop is brutally simple: Navigate 25 distinct tracks in under 60 seconds without your health reaching zero. Yet, within this simplicity, a deep and demanding skill set emerges.

• Core Loop & Control: The game uses a behind-the-vehicle perspective with direct control (WASD/Arrow keys + mouse for camera). The handling is physics-based; the mower has weight, momentum, and a wide turning radius. Mastery is about learning each track’s layout not by memory alone, but by feel—anticipating slides, braking points, and acceleration zones. The “walling out of track” penalty (instant failure) is the game’s most severe mechanic, punishing even a millisecond of inattention with total restart.

• Progression & Obstacles: Progression is gated purely by skill. There is no upgrade system, no currency, no unlockable vehicles. Your only tool for improvement is your own learned expertise. The obstacles form a deliberate, escalating lexicon:

  • Static Hazards: Bombs (timed or proximity), pits.
  • Dynamic Hazards: Moving circular saws on tracks or swinging from above.
  • Active Enemies: “Plants which shoots bombs” (as the description states)—these are stationary turrets that fire explosive projectiles in arcs or straight lines, forcing the player to time movements between volleys.
  • The Turbo Boost: The sole positive power-up. Strategically placed on tracks, it grants a brief, intense speed burst. Its use is a critical risk/reward calculation: use it to shave crucial seconds, or conserve it for a particularly hazardous section?

• Systems Analysis: The Health System is the game’s central tension. With a limited pool (likely 3-5 hits), every collision is a resource to be managed. The Timer is the non-negotiable antagonist. The interplay creates a unique pressure: you must be fast, but reckless speed leads to hits; you must be careful, but hesitation means failure. The Track Design is the star. Each of the 26 tracks (the Steam page says 25, the description says 26) is a carefully crafted puzzlebox of these elements. Early tracks teach basic hazards; later ones combine saws, shooters, tight corners, and boost placement into fiendish, memory-intensive gauntlets.

• Flaws & Innovations: The game is “innovative” only in its absolutist purity. There is no hand-holding, no difficulty sliders, no compromise. Its “flaw” is the same as its strength: an almost masochistic difficulty curve that can feel unfair on first (and fiftieth) attempt. The lack of a restart shortcut (requiring menu navigation) is a notorious pain point. The innovation is in its uncompromising design ethos. It asks one question—”Can you?”—and answers only with the cold finality of the timer hitting zero or the flag falling.

World-Building, Art & Sound: The Aesthetic of the Uncanny

The world of Lawnmower: Mortal Race is not a world at all, but a series of abstract, floating arena-tracks. The setting is a void-like skybox or a featureless plain. Tracks are suspended in this emptiness, bordered by invisible walls (“walling out”). This minimalist approach serves pure gameplay function: there is no visual clutter, only the track, the hazards, and the goal. The art style is low-poly, cartoonish, and intentionally crude. The lawnmower is a blocky, brightly colored vacuum cleaner-like object. Hazards are simple geometric shapes (the saw is a jagged disc, plants are low-detail models). This aesthetic reinforces the game’s tone: it’s not meant to be realistic; it’s a digital obstacle course.

The sound design is functional and sparse. The engine of the mower provides a constant, droning hum. Collisions and explosions are loud, crass sound effects that cut through the hum, providing crucial audio feedback. There is a faint, tense musical track that underscores the timer’s urgency. The soundscape is not immersive but informational—it tells you when you’ve made a fatal error without needing to look.

Together, these elements create an atmosphere of surreal, clinical challenge. The unreality of the setting (lawnmowers on floating courses in the sky) matches the game’s absurdist premise. It feels less like a sport and more like a bizarre, punishing simulation test.

Reception & Legacy: A Niche Phenomenon

Critical reception is nearly non-existent in traditional outlets. MobyGames shows no critic reviews, and major sites like IGN lack a scored review. Its legacy is built entirely on player reception and community metrics.

• Commercial & Critical Reception: On Steam, it holds a “Mostly Positive” rating (78% positive from 31 reviews as of early 2026). Praise consistently highlights the addictive “one more try” quality, the satisfaction of mastering a track, and the simple, glitchy charm. Criticisms focus on the high difficulty feeling unfair, the lack of content (only 26 tracks), and the frustrating restart mechanics. Its price point ($4.99, frequently discounted) places it firmly in the impulse-buy indie tier.
• Community & Cultural Footprint: The game’s true impact is seen in its Steam tags and community activity. It is tagged with “Surreal,” “Funny,” “Memes,” “Physics,” and “Hidden Object”—a bizarre but telling combination that speaks to its cult status. The Steam community hub features guides for tracks, screenshots of near-misses, and a poignant discussion thread from a disabled gamer using specialized hardware (MHOOK) who requests a cursor-detach option. This moment highlights its reach: a game built on precise, frantic control becomes a gateway for someone with cerebral palsy, emphasizing the importance of accessibility options even in the most niche of titles.
• Franchise Context: It is the most polished and focused entry in the sprawling Lawnmower Game franchise. While other titles are pure joke concepts (Pinball, Zombies), Mortal Race is the one that treats its core premise—racing a lawnmower against time—with semi-serious mechanical depth. It has been bundled extensively (in “Valkeala Software Bundle,” “Lawnmower bundle”), indicating its role as a flagship title to introduce players to the developer’s wider, weirder catalog.
• Industry Influence: Its influence is likely indirect, part of the wave of ultra-minimalist, high-skill-ceiling indie games (think Getting Over It or QWOP). It demonstrates that a compelling game can be built around a single, brutally simple concept with no narrative scaffolding. It also exemplifies the ” Steam as a weird museum” effect, where bizarre, low-budget experiments find their audience.

Conclusion: A Trimmed Masterpiece of its Kind

Lawnmower: Mortal Race is not a game for everyone. It lacks the production values, the stories, and the scope that define modern blockbusters. Judged by those standards, it is a triviality. But to dismiss it is to miss its unique achievement. It is a perfectly focused artifact of a specific indie design philosophy: take one mundane object, place it in a surreal, hazard-filled environment, set a short, cruel timer, and let the player battle the resulting chaos.

Its legacy is that of a cult precision-tool. It is a game you play not to be entertained by a world, but to duel with a system. Its value is in those split-second victories, the perfect run that shaves 0.2 seconds off the target, the moment of flow where the droning engine and the spinning saws become a rhythm. It is a testament to the idea that gameplay can be its own narrative, that challenge can be its own reward, and that sometimes, the most memorable virtual experience is controlling a blocky lawnmower through a heaven of hellish traps.

Final Verdict: 7/10 – A bizarre, frustrating, and deeply rewarding precision racer. It is essential for connoisseurs of minimalist design and punishing skill-based games, and a fascinating footnote in the strange history of the Lawnmower saga. For the uninitiated, it is an acquired taste; for those who acquire it, it becomes a dedicated, secret obsession.