WikiMini-games
Chao Race
Ten courses, four racers, and a race your chao runs without you.
Updated
Race is the classic mode: your chao and three rivals run a course, and the first over the line wins. Open it from the garden panel.
You do not drive. There is no steering, no button to press and no line to take. Your chao runs the course on its own at speeds its stats decide. Everything that determines the result happened before the countdown.
That makes Race a direct test of how a chao has been raised.
How a race runs
Four racers: your chao plus three opponents generated to match the tier you picked. The sequence is a countdown, the race with live standings, placements as each racer crosses the line, then prizes.
What happens in between is stat-driven and uncertain. Racers tire and stumble. A chao that led the whole course can run out of stamina in sight of the line.
Stamina decides races you should have won. Swim, fly, run and power set how fast a chao covers the parts of a course that ask for them; stamina sets whether it is still going at the end.
Cameras
Four camera rigs, cycleable mid-race:
- Chase the leader, following whoever is winning
- Chase your chao, wherever it is
- Trackside, TV stations along the course, hard-cutting between them
- Sky cam, the whole course at once
The courses
Ten courses in two groups. Nothing is locked, so every course is available from the start.
| Course | Group | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Crab Pool | Beginner | Dive off the cove and swim the length of the great pool, first one out of the water wins. |
| Stump Valley | Beginner | A dash along the south trail with a long glide over the stump-filled gorge. |
| Block Canyon | Beginner | A short sprint to the block wall, then a power climb up and over the top. |
| Mushroom Forest | Beginner | A flat-out run winding through the mushroom-maze corridor. |
| Aquamarine | Jewel | The swimmer's jewel, a hidden-lane start, the under-mountain path, and a plunge into the deep lake. |
| Topaz | Jewel | The flier's jewel, the gorge glide east, then a long soar over the pool on the road north. |
| Peridot | Jewel | The runner's jewel, down the canyon, through the mountain's game room, and out the rock trail. |
| Garnet | Jewel | The powerhouse's jewel, across the gorge, the long river bank, and up into the block field. |
| Onyx | Jewel | A grand cross-garden circuit, south gate to the mountain's game room and out the rock trail. |
| Diamond | Jewel | The ultimate tour, the gorge, the game room, the tunnel loop, a diving lake crossing, and the long road home. |
The gap between the groups is large. Beginner courses are laid out over 12 to 32 waypoints; jewel courses run from 70 to 230. A chao with no stamina finds that out somewhere in the middle of them.
Tiers and prizes
The tier sets how good your opponents are, on the same ladder Karate uses. Picking a tier picks your competition, not your course.
Race has no extracted table of its own, and Karate’s is not a stand-in: its second prize column is the karate exhibition, which Race has no equivalent of.
| Tier | Opponent levels | Prize |
|---|---|---|
| Beginner | 1 to 8 | 100 |
| Standard | 10 to 26 | 200 |
| Expert | 30 to 55 | 400 |
| Super | 58 to 92 | 800 |
Racing pays training XP either way: 7 for a win, 4 for a loss. A chao that races all afternoon and never wins still comes home stronger.
Winning records a trophy, and some chest gems are unlocked by race results.
Where Race fits
Because you cannot intervene, a race reports a chao’s stat spread in about ninety seconds. If it wins Crab Pool and drowns in Block Canyon, you have a swimmer whatever you meant to raise.
It is also income that costs nothing but time: no entry fee, no way to lose anything, and XP on every run. Compare Chao Board, where the design is that you can lose what you are carrying.