This is a very niche meta-data heavy game where you need to comb the stats for the horse that will make you money and then race that horse.
It is my first offline play-by-email game that involves literally moving files between players (usually via Discord etc). Theoretically can have an unlimited number of players. Each horse race is run by the host and the replay's are made available to players to watch in their own time. The game is essentially turn based and speed is set by the host.
This is still in dev but after several months of working on this it is now a very playable beta game. Would love for you to give it a go and perhaps suggest some game balancing tweaks.
Please read the instructions before rage quiting. 8 - )
I’ve gone through the wiki page, and I have a couple of questions. Is there a built-in randomization algorithm or specific variables, such as horse stats, that influence race outcomes? Also, is there a feature that allows users to breed or create custom horses with unique stats?
The horse strength + rng affects how many cells the horse will move each turn. Horses of equal strength will in theory finish the same - subject to rng - however - the corners create bottle necks so the same strength could play out very differently.
Breeding isn't yet implemented. I wasn't sure how to prevent super horses that win every race but I can see that can be an engaging activity for some.
Let me know if you have balancing tips - especially aid the finances.
You can see the "phases" in the image above. PERFECT will move 5 cells (+ rng) and then 6 cells on the next turn (+ rng) and then 10 cells (+ rng) etc. Looking at those phases, PERFECT starts slow and then finishes fast. There is an important strategy to the phasing, especially if horses have similar strengths:
1) horses that start quickly hit the corner quickly and avoid being blocked
2) horses that finish quickly tend to beat tie breaks when two horses finish on the same turn.
