Battle Racers is a race car design and battle-racing game. It it is similar to games like Super Mario Cart, Mod Nation Racers, and LittleBigPlanet Karting, but with collectible cars that exist on the Ethereum blockchain.
In Battle Racers, players will be able to collect car parts to mix and match and produce unique cars. They will then be able to race and battle with these cars to win even more car parts.
Battle Racers will exist in the Decentraland virtual world. It is currently in closed beta, but is slated to be released as soon as Decentraland opens.
In this article, we’ll go over where the game will be located, the different types of cars, car parts, practice tracks, car equipment, and more. We’ll tell you everything you need to know to get ready for the game’s launch.
Battle Racers: A Decentraland game
Battle Racers is not a standalone game. It only exists within the virtual world of Decentraland. To play Battle Racers, you’ll need to know the basics of how to create an avatar and move around in this virtual world.
For more information on Decentraland, read this related article. Or for another example of a Decentraland game, check out Chainbreakers.
Battle Racers gameplay
The developer has released some information as to how the game will be played. Here is what we know so far.
Test drive cars
Players who do not own any car parts or cars will still be able to play the game. A number of “test drive cars” will be available for these players.
The developer claims that there will be a variety of models available for this purpose, so new players should be able to get a pretty good idea of what the game will be like just by using the test drive cars.
Building a car
Once a player has decided he is willing to invest money in the game, he’ll be able to build his own car using random parts that he gets from loot crates. To get the crates, a player will initially have to buy them in the game’s store. However, once a car is built, these crates will also be winnable as prizes from racing.
There will be four parts to each car: the body, front, rear, and wheels. Different models for each part will have different effects. And each combination of four parts will produce a car with unique characteristics.
Car equipment
Cars will also have two pieces of equipment. You’ll be able to swap out this gear in-between races for no cost. Some pieces of gear will be offensive. These may be missile launchers, machine guns, or other weapons used to shoot rival cars that are in front of you.
A second type of gear will be defensive, this includes shields or force fields to protect the car from taking damage. There will also be position-based gear such as nitrous boosts and traps that can be laid to damage cars that are coming from behind you.
All cars in a race will have two pieces of equipment. If a player doesn’t own any equipment, he will receive the weakest default gear for the race. But he’ll still have something.
Game location
The Battle Racers arena will look like a giant car. Once Decentraland opens, the arena should be easy to spot from anywhere within Genesis City.
When you arrive at the arena, you’ll see track tables that can be used to access particular racetracks and garage kiosks that can be used to view your available cars.
Practice tracks and competitive tracks
There will be two types of tracks: practice and competitive. Practice tracks will not require an entry fee to race. And players will be able to use practice cars on these tracks.
There will always be four cars to a practice race. If you try to start a race and cannot find four opponents before time runs out, the game will fill the remaining spots with AI opponents.
You will not be able to win medals in practice races, nor will there be any history recorded of your car’s wins and losses.
Competitive races will require an entry fee, and you’ll only be able to enter them using a “race car,” not a practice car. There will be no AI opponents in competitive races.
If less than four players are available to start the race before time runs out, the race will begin with the number of cars available (as long as there are at least two players). If there are not at least two players available, the race will be cancelled.
If you place high enough in a competitive race, you will be awarded a medal. These medals can be used to get loot crates that contain random parts.
In addition, every race you participate in will be recorded on the blockchain. If your car wins races, it will gain buffs that will make it more likely to win future races. The buffs from winning one race will not be very large, but they will stack over time.
Practice cars vs. race cars
When a player first builds a car, he can choose to make it a practice car.
The process of building a practice car will be recorded on the Loom Network. However, practice cars will not be tradeable.
Practice cars will not be able to win prizes, but you will be able to swap out parts in these cars whenever you want.
If you race with one practice car and decide you don’t like it, you’ll be able to disassemble it and build a new one for no additional cost.
Race cars will be non-fungible tokens (NFTs) on the Ethereum mainnet. You’ll only be able to swap out parts on a race car that are “upgrades” over the current ones.
Otherwise, you’ll have to pay a fee for disassembly. Race cars will be able to enter competitive races and win prizes. They will also be fully tradeable.
Interoperability with other games
To ensure that Battle Racers collectibles will retain value even if the game ends, the game’s team is developing a public API that will allow other developers to make new games using the collectibles or include uses for them in their own games.
This should allow Battle Racers cars to acquire value separately from the game itself – similar to the way cards used in CCGs often retain value even after they are no longer used in sanctioned tournaments.
Battle Racers team
Battle Racers is produced by Altitude Games, a Manila-based mobile gaming company. The stated mission of the company is to “bring the best Asian mobile games to the rest of the world.” It has previously produced Kung-Fu Clicker, Holy Ship!, Dream Defense, and Run Run Super V.
If you are considering whether to be a beta tester for Battle Racers, you may want to check out these other titles first, as these earlier games may share a design philosophy with the new one.
Presale
Altitude Games will be holding a presale on loot crates until June 20, 2019. Wooden crates that contain 1 car part each are currently being sold for 0.035 ETH or approx. $8.50.
The part has an 80% chance of being of common rarity, 17% chance of being rare, 3% chance of being epic, and 0.0556% chance of being legendary.
For collectors willing to spend more, bronze, silver, and gold crates are available. The gold crate costs 0.7 ETH or approx. $170.
It contains 4 car parts, each of which have a 20% chance of being common, 50% chance of being rare, 30% chance of being epic, and 2.4167% chance of being legendary.
If you decide to start collecting these items before the release, you may want to join the Telegram and Discord groups for the game and consider becoming a beta tester.
Conclusion
It’s too soon to know whether Battle Racers will be a fun game. Only the beta testers have been able to play, and the current version of the game may differ significantly from the final product. But there are some things we do know about the game now.
This article has explored how Battle Racers will work once it opens. It has explained the types of cars, races, how car equipment will work, and many other features.
If you’re considering beta testing this game and/or accumulating its collectibles, we hope this information has been of help to you.
We’ll be watching Battle Racers development over time, and we’ll keep you updated as new information arises.
