Summary

• BlockTrucks is an offroad P2E racing game on Enjin/Efinity
• Available in-browser, Windows client, and Android and iOS in the near future.
• Release date is Q2 2022

Since the announcement of the Efinity parachain (which I explain in an article here,) Enjin appears to be ramping up its partnerships with games, inducting more projects into its Enjin and Efinity ecosystem.

This week, Enjin announced a new entry in the form of BlockTrucks.

What Is BlockTrucks?

BlockTrucks is a real-time multiplayer, offroad racing game built using Enjin and Efinity. It is multi-platform in that it can be played in a browser, Windows desktop, Android, and iOS devices, with the latter two coming later. The release date is Q2 2022.

How Is it Play-to-Earn?

It is Play-to-Earn (P2E) through a number of channels. Firstly, racing rewards card booster packs that can be bought and sold on any open marketplace. Secondly, you can win stadium rights which means for a period of time you get commission for races in that stadium. Thirdly, by racing and ranking up and from winning tournaments, you earn $TRUCK token. Finally, players may also get NFT cosmetic drops that are tradeable.

A common question of mine when a game is both competitive and P2E is, is it pay-to-win? To counter that, BlockTrucks has all players start on an even keel with a slow, non-upgraded truck, which can be upgraded by racing. Trucks cannot be sold and there is a cap on how many upgrade card booster packs a player can open each day. So, it is possible that you could simply buy upgrades every day, but you wouldn’t have a distinct advantage over an active player.

Final Thoughts

My initial reaction to BlockTrucks is mostly positive with a few caveats. Firstly, the game has been in development (under a different name initially) since 2018 and has seen multiple iterations, which is encouraging. As a racing game fanatic, I was surprised but impressed at how the gameplay looked, which borders realistic but appears to be impactful. Then, of course, the fact that there’s gameplay at all that we can view puts BlockTrucks ahead of a lot of in-development blockchain games who don’t bother — something I gladly rant about weekly.

One area which I feel particularly positive about is the P2E elements. They have done well to counter pay-to-win elements while walking the line of competitiveness and P2E. Furthermore, the tournaments and ranks add replayability, presuming the gameplay is up to scratch.

As for the caveats: the first one is a personal gripe, in that I don’t want more browser games. I do appreciate that accessibility appears to be the lifeblood of blockchain games’ success currently, but I’d love to see us move away from browser titles. By making a game able to be played on a browser you drastically limit graphics, map size, detail, performance, and so on. This brings me to my second reservation: simplicity. The gameplay is linear and simple, by design, but will therefore require rewarding and addictive gameplay to retain players, as well as a steady stream of added content, such as tracks.

Overall, it looks to be an interesting project that has been well thought through in terms of economy and competitiveness. Enjin, with its Unity SDK (the engine BlockTrucks uses), is an understandable move, particularly with Efinity now live and how that overcomes the Ethereum flaws that hamstrung Enjin’s progress. The release is imminent, so I’ll certainly be giving it a try and if it warrants it, a review.