Buckle Up for Wacky VR Racing in ‘Galaxy Kart,’ Out Now for Meta Quest

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Aug 8, 2024

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Galaxy Kart is making its way to the official Meta Quest store today and bringing along its unique brand of wacky, fast-paced, and fun casual racing. Inspired by classic console kart racing games, you’ll be blasting off around tracks and tossing items using the Meta Quest controllers in no time.

To learn more about Galaxy Kart, its inspirations, and what it was like to bring it to the Meta Quest, we spoke with Pedro M. Kayatt, CEO of developer VRMonkey.

Galaxy Kart is a VR game that's been around for a while on various platforms and on App Lab. Can you start by telling us a bit about the game? What's the elevator pitch here?

Pedro Kayatt:Galaxy Kart came as an idea just after I played Mario Kart VR in Shinjuku VRZone station, I was just so in love with the experience that the idea that people at home would not be able to have the same blast was killing me! We gathered our team and started to pitch which kind of arcade kart racing game we would like to play and we all said that we wanted crazy characters that would become avatars of our own, so we made a hero ability customized for each character.

How much has the game changed since it originally debuted?

PK: The game has been given an insane overall. At our launch we had only 4 tracks, now we have 18 tracks. We added a Tournament mode as well, the multiplayer became much better with built-in voice-chat. Performance was something that we also improved, so now the game is much smoother. All the AI and the game balance has been changed as well. We still plan to make more content updates, with a new power-up coming up and two new characters to debut.

Let's talk numbers. How many tracks, characters, power-ups, etc. are there in this game?

PK: 18 Tracks, 6 Tournaments, 9 Characters, 6 Powerups, 4 Levels of Difficulty (Easy, Normal, Hard, and Challenge,) and multiplayer for up to six players.

What about game modes?

PK: We have single race and tournament, as well as single player and multiplayer online. We plan to have a tourist mode just to drive around without opponents as well eventually.

Bringing this game to the Meta Quest store is a big moment. What has player response been like thus far?

PK: We are very excited, because so far player reception has been really positive. People are saying things like, "I can't believe this is running on a Quest!'' and "This is the best VR Kart Racing game ever!" One of our main considerations was to make the game comfortable even though it is a racing game, so in the settings of the game you can customize the level of tunneling view that appears in situations that would make you dizzy and a lot of people who can't handle VR well have been giving great feedback.

What does Galaxy Kart on the Meta Quest mean for the game? What about this platform do you feel like uniquely elevates the experience for players?

PK: There is no question that Meta Quest is the most popular headset out there, and the best way to play Galaxy Kart is for sure in the multiplayer mode. Meaning that now Galaxy Kart has the chance to be popular enough to always have some people available for a friendly match.

Given the game's multiple ports and iterations over the years, what were some of the biggest challenges you faced during development?

PK: At the start of bringing this game to Meta Quest we thought we would need to re-create a big chunk of the game since it was originally meant for PC VR and PS VR2 in order to achieve a stable framerate, but we were wrong! Thanks to several tools available in Unreal Engine we managed to get the exact same game and customize the graphics quality in a way that the same game can run smoothly at 72 FPS without even the need to use other techniques.

On a similar note, what are some of the biggest lessons you've learned that you'd like to impart on other VR developers?

PK: Wow, I think I could spend at least 50 minutes talking about how many optimizations we managed to use into this porting, and in the development of the game in general. First thing would be, try to focus on the art production where the player will be looking at specifically. For example, in Galaxy Kart, we spent too much time in so many 3D assets that most people never see during gameplay.

Second, never limit yourself to something that is "safe." In Galaxy Kart, we added ramps which give a boost to the karts after landing. This seemed like a crazy idea for VR (even more because we wanted to be more comfortable and not make people sick.) In the end it worked so well that we can't think about the game without it anymore.

Finally, if you believe in your game, keep developing it. The first prototype of Galaxy Kart was around five years ago and the game went two years without being developed when we re-started development and now we are finally launching the game we always wanted.

What's next for Galaxy Kart? Do you have any post-launch plans for the game in the form of additional content or new updates?

PK: Oh yeah! Galaxy Kart has a nice roadmap ahead, first update we plan to add the Mega-missile: a new power-up that is meant to take down the 1st position. After that we have two new characters coming: a samurai and a crash-dummy. These will all be free updates.

Do you have any tips for new players hitting the tracks for the first time?

PK: Keep your eyes on the ground and look for the boosts. The secret for a great lap time is to combo boosts with ramps and never stop using your skills.

Finally, where can players find out more about the game and keep track of any news or updates?

PK: The best place to be up-to-date is our Discord server. Stop on by!

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You can get behind the wheel and check out Galaxy Kart for yourself, which just launched on the official Meta Quest store today.