Next: You Make Your Game

You caught every single Pokemon? Looking for the next challenge? Tampere, Finland based startup Traplight launched on Thursday a challenge outside your reach. In its debut game, there are more than 20,000 user-generated levels and the amount is rising fast every single day.

Traplight, the creator of the game Big Bang Racing, says it is the first mobile game where every level is outsourced to the player community. As it has tested the game on some markets since late 2015, the number of levels to play is stunning at a start. On Thursday it launched the free-to-play game globally.

Surely, launching one’s big debut game at a time of Pokemon-craze might not be the optimal solution. At the same time, the user-generated racing game is hardly a rival to Pokemon. The direct competition is only for youngsters time.

 

Big Bang Racing likes to be more compared to user-generated success stories like Youtube, where everyone can become a star content creator by building unique racing levels through its touch-screen editor.

“Big Bang Racing represents how we envision the future of mobile gaming – community-driven experiences that revolve around player creativity and social interaction,” Riku Rakkola, CEO of Traplight, said in a statement. “Leaving the content of your game up to the players can seem like a gamble, but when you think about platforms like Youtube, you realise that it’s 100% user-generated content.”

Trying It Out

Of course, we tried it out. And what’s better for a real test than giving it to the hands of the 10-year-old player. “Creating levels is really fun,” she said after a few days of playing. “This morning I created another one.”

Using the editor you can draw the race course and drag and drop different elements, making the track more challenging.

BigBang3

At first, the levels seem a little overwhelming for her. “I am stuck at level 20, and I cannot get through,” she said while switching to Pokemon. When we return to the level together, she gets through on the first attempt. Now she is at levels 30+.

The levels she has created are yet to be published for the wider community or shared with the friends. Summer holidays end in a month, then some of her classmates will surely switch to the racing game.