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These racing game players are 11 days into an exhausting race to climb a deadly towerThe winner gets $15,000
The winner gets $15,000
Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun / Ubisoft
Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun / Ubisoft
Buckle up. A bunch of players are competing to cross the finish line of a brutally difficult tower of racetracks in racing gameTrackmania, with a prize pool of $30,000 waiting for the first three drivers to reach the top. The course is a huge, winding gauntlet made of pieces suspended in midair, and even expert players have fallen from their positions over 1000 times, their carshurtling back to the bottom of the towerto start again. The top contenders are currently trying to crack a difficult spot to reach the 12th floor, at which point the course will reveal unknown territory. They seem a little tired, which is not surprising. They are 11 days into the event.
Deep Dip 2 - Sneak PeakWatch on YouTube
Deep Dip 2 - Sneak Peak
Right now, you can see several of the expert racers streaming their efforts on Twitch. Among the frontrunners are Norwegian non-stopperØyvind “Wirtual” Iversenand fast FrenchmanBrendan “Bren_TM2” Seve. At the time of writing, they are both chasing the Czech champion Filip “eLconn21” Šprungl, with mere centimetres separatingthe top heights of all three players. For context, when players race, they can see the ghosts of other players, but cars can’t physically interact. This is more of a time trial thing, but it doesn’t stop the sense of friendly competitiveness coming through. Nor the sense of challenge.
“It’s impossible,” said Seve on the 10th day of streaming his efforts . “I think an average player would be happy to reach floor four maybe, floor three. I think floor two is quite hard. I’m not usually trying to pretend that what I’m doing is insane or anything, but it’s hard. It’s a hard map.”
You can try the map yourself, but you might not get too far, warns Seve.
“I feel like most people underestimate how hard it is just to reach floor two,” he said on Twitch. “Trackmania looks quite easy. It looks way easier than what it is… You watch pro players on the world cup, they do a mistake - it almost looks stupid - but it’s so precise.”
Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun / Ubisoft
You can understand that. Trackmania sometimes looks like Hot Wheels - and how could toy cars flying about on funny tracks be hard? But players have to account for a lot, says Bren. There are multiple surface types, for example, like icy roads or cylindrical beams, and each one requires a different approach.
Skillful players can often make things look like a cinch, it’s true. My favourite trick is when the racers turn their cars upside down and waddle-squash their way acrossseemingly impossible gaps.
But there’s hope for casual racers. Theorganisers planto release an easy version of Deep Dip 2, with checkpoints, so that normal idiots like you and I might some day know the terrors and joys of falling 1000 metres to our doom, without the fear of losing too much progress. But that will only happen once one of these pros beats the tower, they say.
“I encourage anyone to try the map anyways, to see what you achieve,” says Bren. “I think it’s good to try the map anyway just to put into perspective our attempts.”
I’m gunning for them. I had to enter the map to get screenshots, and I couldn’t even tell which direction I was supposed to drive. It takes skill just thereadthe road, never mind drive on it. Anyway. We’ll keep an eye on the race and let you know how it develops.
