Breeding Previewer!

Third Time Dev
5 min readNov 30, 2021

Hello and welcome back Crypto Horse Racing fans! Today we are pleased to announce the release of our long awaited Breeding Previewer Tool.

The breeding preview tool at work!

You may be asking — why has this been so sought after? What does it do?

For those new to this project, to date we have created and released two sets of NFTs to our fans: Stylish Studs (mint price 0.2 SOL) and Fine Fillies (mint price 1.0 SOL). The Studs and Fillies represent male and female horses, the progeny of whom will exist as the very first generation of race horses (“Generation Zero”) in our upcoming game, Photo Finish 2.

10,000 Stylish Studs and 5,000 Fine Fillies are actively trading on aftermarket sites like Magic Eden

Ever since the Fine Fillies were released, owners have been speculating about which Fillies will match best with which Studs to produce the best Generation Zero horses in the game. We’ve put a lot of time and work into creating this breeding preview tool, which will give owners instantaneous feedback regarding potential offspring!

The PFP (Profile Picture) NFT’s breed to produce an actual 3D Racehorse!

How it works:

The left side of the breeding preview tool auto-populates with the data of any given Stylish Stud or Fine Filly. Simply type the number of the Stud or Filly in question into the field marked with a ✏️ and the NFT’s traits (Background, Face, etc.) will show up. The number of your Stylish Stud / Fine Filly is their ‘name’ as seen for example at the top of your Phantom wallet.

PROTIP: WHILE TESTING, WE HAVE MADE THE MISTAKE OURSELVES OF ACCIDENTALLY TYPING IN THE RANK OF THE NFT AND NOT THE ID. IF THE NUMBERS LOOK OFF ALWAYS DOUBLE CHECK THAT THE METADATA MATCHES UP AND THAT YOU USED THE ID!

In the example below, we’ve used Stud #7334 and Filly #3377. You can see the Stud’s and Filly’s traits broken down into the five categories.

Destined to be together…

Below the list of traits is the total number of matching traits. So you can see, these two share 3 matches: Head, Coat, & Outfit.

The combination of these two would create an in-game Generation Zero horse with a grade of A. All 5,000 potential Generation Zero horses are graded between B, A, and S (highest). There are grades above and below these horses in the Photo Finish ecosystem, so future offspring will eventually be better racers than their parents, while some will be worse (just like real life!).

Digging into the stats, this horse is strongest at Stamina, Temper, and Heart, while being weakest at Start and Speed. As for their skills, you can see the horse prefers Right-turning races on Grass with Soft ground. Looking closely this horse actually looks like it may have a ‘zero’ for the Start and Speed attributes, but the bars represent ‘bonuses’ or ‘boosts’ to the stat, not an absolute value. So you can think of this horse below as having default A-grade Start but no extra boosts on top of that.

What to do with this information:

When the actual game is released and players can begin racing with their horses, a smart owner armed with this knowledge would know to enter the horse into long distance grass (aka turf) races that run clockwise, and would be wise to avoid short distance races on dry dirt.

But now, before the release of the game, PFP owners can utilize this tool to grade their matches and trade their way towards the best possible Generation Zero horse!

Using the tool, you can see that the rarity of the PFPs determines the overall grade level of your horse, but the number of matches can boost their stats and skills quite dramatically. You may next ask — “Is it better to have a B horse with high stats or an A horse with low stats?” — well, that’s up to you! It is horse racing after all, and horses can perform above and below their expectations. A horse with higher skills and stats is more flexible and can succeed in more varying race types, while a horse with a higher grade has more raw talent and potential top speed. It all depends on what type of stable you want to run!

In early Q1 of next year, we will open up what we have dubbed “The Great Mating Event”. Put simply, this means breeding preview tool will gain more functionality, including a “Mint!” button which will digitally mate the Stylish Stud and Fine Filly together and provide you, the owner of the Stylish Stud and Fine Filly, with the actual Generation Zero ticket you are previewing. This Generation Zero ticket will be publicly trade-able on aftermarket sites. This is a very critical decision you will have as a PFP owner, as the minting action will also update the metadata on the Fine Filly so she will not be able to be bred again.

We hope this tool helps our loyal fans out there get the most of their Stable of NFT’s and helps set you up to use your skill and strategy to build a championship stable in Photo Finish 2!

We can’t wait to see your horses on the track!

Summary

As always, reach out on Twitter or Discord and join the fun. It is very early and we have so much more amazing news to share in the coming months!

About

Photo Finish 2 is the 3rd horse racing title created by veteran game development studio Third Time, Inc. Founded by a senior leadership team with 50+ years experience heading up games, teams, and studios at EA Sports, Zynga, FanDuel, Glu, and more, Third Time is building the most authentic horse racing ecosystem with play to earn mechanics and a dual token economy utilizing the Solana blockchain, releasing in Q1/Q2 2022. Learn more at https://photofinishhorseracing.com

--

--

Third Time Dev

Game development studio with many years in AAA, mobile, and F2P. Crypto enthusiasts. Big fans of Unity.