DecentRally: Setting the Track for Future Experience Creators Using Infinity Engine Code
The first of its kind in Decentraland, DecentRally shows what the Infinity Engine code can do, serving as an open source foundation for future high-speed experiences.
Upon the launch of Decentraland in early 2020, the Infinity Engine game was released to serve as an example of how to create experiences for the platform that weren’t limited by the boundaries of a parcel. The game was focused on a wild west, high speed chase where players had to defend their train full of loot from bandits on horseback. All on 5×5 parcels.
Now a new experience, this time the racing game DecentRally, has been released to serve as an example of how boundaries can be broken using the Infinity Engine framework. As the game is open source, it will be the first time that Infinity Engine code is open to the public. Built on 3×3 parcels, DecentRally consists of 2 tracks and has all the basic features you’d want in a racing game, such as multiplayer, obstacles, boosters, and more. The game’s creators hope that the community will build on the foundation that DecentRally offers and create many new and exciting experiences for Decentraland.
Play DecentRally here: Link
Get your engine started for a quick Q&A with the creators of DecentRally and learn more about the game and what it offers to creators.
Q&A with the creators of DecentRally
DCL: Tell us about DecentRally—what are its key elements and what is its goal?
DR: We created DecentRally as an in-depth example to share with the community that could serve as a good foundation for other content creators to build upon. It has all the core building blocks a racing game needs: race tracks, a lobby, leaderboards (through PlayFab), multiplayer (up to 8 players), drifting, boosts, obstacles, etc. Additionally, any kind of new track shape could be easily exported with the provided Blender script, new themes can be incorporated without trouble, and multiple cars can also be added.
The game is fun to play and has a ton of potential, but it has a ways to go before it’s a game that really attracts players and has good retention over time (it is only an example after all). We look forward to seeing what the community and content creators can do with it!
DCL: What excited you the most about the idea of creating a racing game in the metaverse?
DR: We loved the challenge of the idea as well as testing the limits of Decentraland’s SDK. We are excited to help bring more games to Decentraland that are really fun to play and not just played for a reward.
DCL: What did you use to create DecentRally and how long did the creation process take you?
DR: The game was built with version 6.x of the Decentraland SDK and we used Blender+Photoshop for the assets. It also uses a framework we call the Infinity Engine. Due to the limitations of parcel size in Decentraland, scenes that require more space than a parcel allows are at a disadvantage. The Infinity Engine aims to address this problem by holding a player in the center of a scene and moving the game around them, allowing for a theoretical infinitely-sized scene on a fixed parcel size.
The original Infinity Engine game was built on 5×5 parcels and DecentRally used 3×3 parcels. The smallest we’d recommend building with the Infinity Engine is 2×2, but that’s ultimately up to the creativity of the creator. Overall, the game took our team of three about 4-5 months to build, working on the project part time.
DCL: What makes creating a game in Decentraland fun? What would be your advice to community members who would like to try developing games in Decentraland?
DR: Decentraland’s current SDK is very easy to use for anyone with beginner coding experience, which is a plus. It’s fun to break the limitations of a platform, to always be on the edge of a new breakthrough. Experimenting is what’s fun. Trying to make small spaces feel larger, finding ways to make users fly, stretching the limits of what a Wearable can be, the possibilities are limitless! Decentraland is, by very definition, the space for experimentation.
In terms of advice, take a look at the many open source examples provided by the Decentraland Foundation (which includes this game) in the Awesome Repository. Get an idea of what is possible, what has been done, and use what you see there as a building block for your own game.
DCL: What is the current best lap time in DecentRally?
DR: We have only tested the game internally thus far, so the sample size is small. There are two tracks. The best lap time for the City Track is 56.881 seconds (Peanutbutta) and for the Desert Track 52.551 seconds (Rabbit#58e2). We can’t wait to see the best times from Decentraland’s community. :D
DCL: What other experiences have you created in Decentraland?
DR: There are far too many to list, and some aren’t even up anymore, but here are some worthy nominations:
