Whip Horses In Turn-Based Chariot Racer, ‘QVADRIGA’

Turnopia is a solo developer interested in simple, turn-based games without the need for a “clickfest”. Daniel Lopez Soria is the name and his game is what we like to deem a turn-based chariot racer, though the title of the game uses the correct term to describe the four-horse chariot within – QVADRIGA.

It’s an odd concept – a racing game that is turn-based – but if you run with it you’ll find that it actually works pretty well. As you get into the game you’re greeted with a grand entrance and then presented with a couple of choices which will affect how well you fare in the upcoming race. First up is the faction you belong to, which range from the tough Russata (Roman Army) to the crafty Prasina (commoners) and the perfectionist Albata (priests). Moving to the right, you’ll then have three stat points to spend in hopes to increase your chances. Perhaps focusing on a speedy horse will help, but then you won’t withstand much of the battering if you get into a tussle.

With the preliminaries sorted, the eight of you will then lineup, staggered of course, prepared for the three lap race ahead of you. Now, you won’t need to be quick off the mark in terms of reactions, this is determined by your choices beforehand. The first couple of turns you will have the choice to shake the reins or to whip your horses though; the former being less effective on speed but not as damaging to your horses as the latter.

The first straight is usually fairly danger-free, but that soon changes when you get the first corner. By this time you’ll have many more choices to pick from on each turn. Most of them being surmised as accelerate, decelerate, whip your horses, move to the left or right and to attack left or right. Though this simplicity worked well, it would have been great to have a few more situation specific choices. For instance, a carriage as approached from your left side, at this point you may want to grind wheels, attack their horses or maybe just the charioteer, but you can only attack in a general kind of way through laceration.

That kind of thing clearly collides with the developer’s goal here though; of creating a simple, turn-based game. Once you’ve made your decision each turn you’ll then watch the result play out for a few seconds but before this you’re given a guideline which changes color according to the danger you’ll be put in: sideslip, horse damage, car damage or maybe even flipping. It feels a little unfair to some maybe, as you can’t really guess the outcome of your simple decision and once it’s been made that’s it, but that’s the risk you take and upon reflection it seems an adequate way of capturing the risks you may take in a real time racing game.

At the current moment in time, QVADRIGA is only in beta as the developer works to improve the experience where possible and add multiplayer to the game, which should make everything a lot more interesting. The single player is fun, but AI can’t match real human opponents. On our first try of the game, we were taken out around a corner but that’s because we were being reckless. On the second try, the AI took each other out during the first lap which left us with two rather boring laps to win the race, as you can see below.

You can download the beta version of QVADRIGA by clicking on this link. More information on the game can be found over on the official website.