INTRO
What is better than writing (and reading) about blockchain games like Axie Infinity, Splinterlands, with playable content that are readily available? Well, Writing about games that are still in development! Apart from the investments advantage it poses for the writer (and readers), you can explore the future of Gamefi and dream in it.
As a true Believer of Gamefi (Gaming + NFTs), I'm truly excited to see games that promise enjoyable gameplay, immersive graphics, and flexible ways to earn. There are not a lot of games like this, BUT that doesn't mean we should throw in the bucket and give up on Good quality blockchain games FAR FROM IT. Because you only need to see the number of games in development with insane graphics to know what the future of Gamefi would be like.
And right here, I've found one such game that promises both unique gameplay, superb graphics, and multiple ways to earn;
Metarace Horse Racing Game: First Impressions
My very first impression of this Game Metarace was that it has solid badass graphics. In reality, I can only go by the officially shared graphics on Twitter and Discord but I can't help myself but appreciate a good-looking game when I see one, can I?. The second next impression I had in mind, was like 'Yeah, This is not a Card Game!'. It sounds funny and somewhat rude? But at this stage, I cannot stand any Blockchain Card Game that pops up.
Splinterlands and Axie Infinity implemented this design in a way that I consider Original(when there were no flocks of them card games, you know) but many [necessarily not All] such games claiming to bring a new strategy, mass load of fun, enjoyment, etc With card games are just pfft.
One more thing that was intriguing was the unique idea that I could never really envisage seeing in a Blockchain Game. We all have thoughts about Car Racing with fast realistic-looking cars for example but never really Horse Racing with Gear built mechanical Digital Horses. So it got my mind working about the elements that would constitute this unique game, and before I knew it I wanted to see more.
Gameplay Experience
The Gameplay of Metarace involves players matching their horses against players in Racecourses of varying metres between 1200 meters and up to 3600 metres. There are extra and crucial NFTs to gear up your mechanical horses such as jockeys silks, tail decorations, helmets, saddles, and of course the racecourses NFTs. How sick is that?, so many items as gears, I'm loving this - furthermore, I'm thinking if all these would have little tweaks towards a successful win in a race? OR is that dependent on Horses Genes/Genome alone(Read on below to discover about genes)? These NFTs are in-game assets that would all be tradeable in the marketplace.
All Mechanical Horses are supposedly driven by genes. Like biological real horses, each NFT horse is made up of Bloodline genetic gene pools that will directly impact race performance, results, and assets value in general. The NFT mechanical Horses are let me say - made up of six core parts(genomes), that influence their performance levels. They are;
Horseshoe - Impacts GRIP
Rear Leg Gear - Imapcts ACCELERATION
Front Leg Gear - Impacts ENDURANCE
Engine - Impacts SPEED
Horse Head - Impacts Well, Horse Head
Electronic Reins - Impacts INTELLIGENCE
As seen below;
Immersive XR
Ok at this stage, I don't want to get too all in over myself BUT Gosh, I do love VR. I mean, there are lots of Vr games around but the big deal is when A Blockchain NFTs Play2Earn Game Implements this. It's crazy, and yeah because you get an immersive experience in a game that you own assets and can trade, control your funds and grow your stashes. It's my ideal experience - I believe would be the same for many hardcore gamers.
In Metarace NFT there would be XR integration for players to immersively connect in the experience of racing and managing their racing courses. Since it wasn't specified in detail about the type of XR content, I can't really spoil you with extra details on this... But since I doubt it would be AR content, my mind turns to VR which is the perfect combo for PC or Web games.
In summary(and accd to their whitepaper), this would be an extension of their main application where players can experience their NFTs and horse racing in VR. What's not to Love? This adds up perfectly since Metarace long term plan is to create a metaverse with a collection of other games - you can even feel in their name!
Earning Mechanics - NFTs (Blah Blah Blah) + Race Course Ownership (Now we are Talking)
Okay, we are well aware(for the most part) of how most Blockchain Games implement Earnings. Let me just say that some of them really annoy the guts out of me, and those are exactly the games with absolutely NO gameplay and fully dependent on Trading NFTs on Opensea and Public sales.
I'm glad to see NFTs integrated into the gameplay, just like how (for example), splinterlands Cards are NFTs AND they provide engaging interactive gameplay. In this case, Metarace Earnings Mechanics has been implemented with the same unique notion than how many blockchain games today strive to be literally just a mining game or fully Defi application.
In Metarace, you earn by putting your horses against other players in different competitions(More on this later), and earn rewards with each successful race. To participate in races, players first need to own a mechanical horse AND jockey silks while other accessories are optional. The way I see it as a gamer, this introduces the competitive aspect in the game, where gamers are strategically choosing accessories that would hugely affect the outcome of a race.
For example (purely driven by imagination), Player 1 with a Horse built strongly on Endurance would more likely have a victory outcome in a 3600 Metres race regardless of if 11 other Players have horses with higher Speed.
In a shorter racecourse track, speed should have an advantage. These gameplay mechanics alone could define if Metarace as a Blockchain NFTs Game is just very enjoyable or plain addictive.
There are two tokens in MetaRace Metaverse; META and RACE. META & RACE would be used for the entire in-game transactions like for race registration and other fees including breeding, probably also to purchase gears and genome parts. They would also be used to reward players, racetrack operators, and tournaments competitions. At the moment, there is no specific info on which token would be allocated for fees & expenses and rewarding players.
Before every race, players need to pay a registration fee in Meta token, After the Race 80% of the fee is distributed to the top 3 Match winners in the correct proportion, 10 % is paid to the race track owners and the remaining 10% is used for Metarace tokens Buy Backs
Further utility and revenue streams of racecourses are sponsored advertisementBecause Literally, there's NO global sporting competition that exists without advertisements from sponsors - A superb implementation to add to the realism of a Horse Racing NFT game trying to provide a really sustainable and fair competition. 80% of the Revenues earned from sponsored advertisements would be distributed to the racecourse owners
Tournaments & Competitions
Finally, we come down to the main event!. Tournaments are seasonal competitions that are divided into levels of 1 -5. 1 being the highest and 5 being the lowest of which each NFTs mechanical horse must meet the level required to participate in corresponding levels.
There's the Integral Tournament; Where horses can race for free to improve their level and learn tactics to win
There's the Tournament level; Which is the most popular racing event I would guess, it's what I have been referring to above, where players place their horses to race, and the top three horses earn rewards.
It's also important I mention here that, the competition in Metarace is based on RNG Technology which means there's a random distribution of winners, and dominant Genes could influence the outcomes of victory BUT there is yet NO such guarantee of victory. Great, aren't you excited to see how this plays out?
There's also the Grand Pix; which is an elimination type tournament where 12 horses would compete at multiple races to determine the final 3 standing winners
And Finally the Next Stage; Which is the combination of Death Mathes(Race to the Death I'm guessing, endurance rocks again), Battle Match, and Offline Levelling(This might be the first Blockchain Game to have an offline mode, correct me if I'm wrong)
Conclusions
Woah, that was quite the write-up. It's obvious how excited I'm about this game, that is yet to be fully released. It's also basic knowledge BUT I'll still mention that - some of the information I shared here have been gathered and summarised through Metarace Official pages and whitepaper and that since this game hasn't even been released, expect to see changes.
I would constantly be looking up for new information and would strive to update this post regularly if need be OR maybe write a new one if there are too many exciting releases at once, but if you're too excited to wait for my updates, feel free to look them up yourself. Links are provided for you to explore below Player, and with all of that said - I end this fantastic post about a fantastic Blockchain NFTs Game MetaRace
Until next time,
Chel_