DappRadar currently tracks decentralized app game developers Altitude Games title Battle Racers on the Ethereum blockchain. With their impending release on Decentraland coming soon, DappRadar spoke to Altitude Games.
Can you tell us about your project, what motivated you to create Battle Racers?
Battle Racers is an action-packed racing game where you are immersed in an arcade-style virtual reality world. Players can race against each other using cars built with parts that can be collected and traded on the blockchain.
We became interested in blockchain because it was shaping up to be the new trend disrupting the game industry. When we heard of Ethereum and smart contracts. We started researching and discovering how non-fungible tokens were a perfect fit for games. Especially since CryptoKitties had reached mainstream popularity.
After several prototypes and because of our fond memories playing Mario Kart and Tamiya cars, we eventually created Battle Racers.
What protocol are you using? Can you tell us why and what benefits/disadvantages that brings?
We are using Matic Network’s Layer 2 Solution as our Sidechain of choice. With their account-based Plasma implementation, high transaction throughput and 1 second block times, performance is no longer a problem. These key features enable us to focus more on curating streamlined user experiences for the end-users.
What’s more, Matic’s low-fee transactions, faster settlement times and Solidity programming support made migrating a seamless experience. And lastly, Decentrand has long been Matic’s partner. As such, its marketplace will be deployed on Matic so it’s a logical choice.
How are you planning to develop/support the dapp over the next 12 months
The biggest thing that’s happening next is our official launch on Decentraland. We are aiming to complete all the features that we have planned such as competitive races and car tokenization.
Our focus is to deliver value for the players and allow them to earn by playing and trading. Tokenized cars would have a recorded race history that would increase the value of their NFTs.
As more people trade, the bigger the prize pool for our official tournaments. Which we’ll have more of in the next months. We’d also like to start working on a mobile version of Battle Racers this year!
How do you see the dapp ecosystem developing in 2020, is this the year of mass adoption?
While the dapp space is growing at a fast pace. I don’t think the time is ripe for mass adoption just yet. In order for that to happen, we need big players to join what is still an early adoption phase. Mainly driven by indie developers.
Furthermore content needs to be readily available for users without much friction. The time will come when we don’t even realize there’s blockchain technology under the hood. When we play games with interoperable items on our phones, but it’s still a long way to go for that.
Finally, as a success story in the space do you have any advice for dapp developers and startups trying to break into the ecosystem?
We realized quickly that content and community are of paramount importance in this space and focussed on that. While securing funds to ensure continued development is important. It’s crucial not to lose track and focus on mechanics and content that the players actually want. Making the game engaging, fun and worth playing.
In the long run, this will be one contributing factor to maintain the value of our in-game asset economy and in the best interest of everyone.
