Announced only in discord as far as I can tell, Moonkarts Alpha is out for players to test.
Since it's the alpha version I assume there are still things to wrap up before it can be marketed to a wider audience, but it is an open version, which is good, it means it passed the initial testing period.
For those interested, there will also be a Race Party tomorrow at noon EST. A good time to find some opponents for the multiplayer part of the game, otherwise it might not be very easy.
Since I have 20 CENTAURI packs (2 opened already), I thought I should give it some time to understand how it works. My first suggestion to you if you want to try it is to play it in full screen if you have a small laptop screen (or worse, a phone). Scrolling through the options isn't fun in a browser window, but in full screen it appears everything is fitting well, at least on my screen.
In all Splinterlands-related games there is at least one mechanism that discourages overpowered players to keep beating on the smaller ones. In Splinterlands, we have leagues and max mana, and higher rewards at higher leagues, generally.
In SoulKeep there is the same, plus the max mana per wave that restricts everyone, to some degree.
I don't know how things are in GLG, since I don't play the game, but I assume there is a mechanic there that either prevents overpowered players to keep beating on the smaller ones or encourages them to move up.
In Moonkarts, this mechanism is fuel. You get fuel by staking cards and SCRIPT tokens (2 SCRIPT per staked card at level 1 from my observations - much like staking DEC and cards on land in Splinterlands).
Without fuel, you can't earn rewards in the multiplayer games you play.
Aggy said in discord that the game is about winning with the least performant gear you can, because fuel consumption per race depends on the type of gear you use. If that were the case, I believe it would be a very interesting proposition making whales think twice about using their best cards.
That is a possibility... The other possibility is that whales would generate so much fuel from staked cards and SCRIPT that they won't care. It's too early to tell, but this will soon become obvious, if the game becomes even a little bit popular.
I also believe MK suffers from the same problem Splinterlands does - new player experience. While it's much easier than Splinterlands, at this stage, I only figured out what I needed to do after reading on discord the steps. Going to the Vault wasn't a priority for me, as a new player, so the first steps need to be made clear in an in-game tutorial or something. Sure, this might not be a priority in the alpha version, but it needs to be on the radar before marketing.
