It’s time for us to break the silence and let you in on what we’ve been working on this past year. We believe the capturing and identification in Chop Shop works well, and that people really enjoy competing to collect cars. This gave us enough faith (last year!) to jump in at the deep end and put some serious work into a large update that will (hopefully!) evolve Chop Shop into more of a fully-fledged game.
Before we begin, I want to make it clear that these additional features are just that, in addition to what we already have. No existing functionality will be changing, and nothing will be lost.
There’s a lot of information, but we want to show you the depth of gameplay we’re adding to Chop Shop. Let’s drive straight into what’s to come!
Car Specs
In the upcoming update all popular vehicles may be assigned a specific spec (specification). The title for this spec may be a trim name, the litreage, an internal designation, a sub-model name... Whatever fits a car model best is used.
We have sourced and added almost 2,000 specs for over 500 car models. This includes data on the engine, horsepower, torque, weight etc which will be used in determining a car’s stats for racing.
This essentially means you will be able to race the vast majority of cars you collect in Chop Shop, and we will continue to add specs as time goes on, as we currently do for car models in general. You can request a “Race Spec” for any excluded models you’re particularly interested in once per week for our consideration.
Upgrades — Car Parts
Cars have three statistics; acceleration, top speed and handling. You can apply all sorts of parts to your vehicles which will improve their stats; bolt-on, turbo, engine, drivetrain, EV, Body, Brakes and Suspension. In total, there are forty different parts you can collect and apply.
Upgrades can be acquired in many ways. Leveling up, completing daily challenges, spending game gold (acquired from daily wins, selling upgrades), selling sleeper vehicle parts or upgrade packs.
Racing Paddocks
Cars are grouped into five different tiers depending on their capability. You may put six cars of the same tier into a paddock and prepare them for racing.
5v5 Racing
Once you have your race cars prepared in a paddock, you may go on to race! At this point you’ve collected cars, applied a few upgrades, and made sure you have each of the three stats (accel, speed, handl) covered.
Matchmaking will bring up a list of other players competing in the same tier, along with their skill level. You put in cash to race them, if you win you get double the amount back.
Now comes the actual races. It’s your five cars versus your opponents five cars. You can see the five tracks you’ll be racing on, and two of your opponents vehicles. You must place your cars in an order you think will win baring in mind the track and cars you’ll be facing. This works in a similar way to poker, where you try to weigh up the odds based on partial information. Then you race, and hope for the best!
If you win, you gain XP, which contributes towards your racing rank. Each time you rank up, you gain a skill point, which you can use to increase your skill level in a tier or to unlock more paddocks (to compete in multiple tiers at once).
1v1 Challenges
If you win a 5v5 race, you may use your paddock’s sixth vehicle in a 1v1 challenge. Winning these challenges will give a ton of XP and temporarily give you your opponents car until the end of the following day, and you can use it in racing. These are high risk races which involve some strategy.
In 1v1 challenges, your car goes head-to-head against your opponents on five different tracks. To win, you must come first in two tracks in a row, or win the last track. You have two points you can spend on allowing or blocking tracks, depending on where your strengths are, or what you think your opponents strengths are and how they’re likely to spend their points.
Race Mechanics
Each day the track focus (type of tracks likely to be selected) and weather conditions change.
We’re pleased with the level of strategy in both 5v5 races and 1v1 challenges, and believe we’ve crafted mechanics that make it more than “the fastest car wins”. You must manage a number of elements well to dominate, but players can have fun and compete no matter their activity or skill level.
Other Changes
Alongside the major additions above, we have other quality of life changes to the original game features. A few key ones:
Dealerships
Rather than a spec slider, you may now choose a specific spec for most vehicles when helping to identify dealerships.
Sleeper Vehicles
There’s a small chance the vehicles you capture may come through as sleeper vehicles and have several parts pre-installed. We think this’ll add a bit more appeal to capturing vehicles, rather than just being greeted with a price and some stats!
Leaderboards
We’ll be adding a racing leaderboard. Current leaderboards will likely stay as they are.
When’s this happening?
Most of the work has been done. We have a some development left and then a good bit of testing. We’re giving this all the time it needs (as I hope you can tell!) and not rushing it out the door.
This article is merely a preview of what is to come, not everything has been included or explained. All will become clearer in the coming months.
Please fire us off a review on the app store or play store if you’re enjoying the game, we’d massively appreciate it.
Thanks for reading! — The Chop Shop Team
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