Bippo Racers: a 3D kart racer with Bippo and friends

What is Bippo Racers?

Bippo Racers is a silly, bright 3D kart racing game that runs right in your browser. Bippo the rocket mutt and seven of his friends from Bippo Blast Planet have discovered the loudest thing on the whole planet: racing. Pick a friend, hop into their home-made kart and race seven others round the four tracks of the Sprinkle Cup: candy-pink sand and sprinkle sandcastles, a tidepool figure eight, windy clifftops under swooping kites and a spiralling bell tower.

It is easy to pick up and smile within ten seconds. On a phone your kart drives itself forward and your thumb steers; on a laptop it is the arrow keys or W A S D; a gamepad works too. Then the depth sneaks up on you: drift round corners until the sparks turn yellow, purple and finally rainbow for a bigger boost, flip off the pier ramp for a trick and a landing boost, tuck in behind another kart to catch a Tailwind, collect Gleams to fill your Blast Meter, and time your items from the Party Boxes. Bots fill the field, and the friendly catch-up keeps every race close without ever handing anyone the win.

Every friend has a different kart and different strengths. Wrenna's Torque Tub accelerates fastest and shrugs off hits, Rivet's brass Boilerplate has the highest top speed and shoves everyone around, Puddle's bottle-cap Fizz Float turns on a penny, Gilly the axolotl lifeguard is nimble and quick, Mellow the capybara is a heavy that still turns, Nibs the raccoon is fast and twisty, Clompy the tiny donkey grips any ground, and Bippo has no weak spot at all. Bippo Racers unlocks with 10 coins you earn for free by playing the other games on Rocket Games.

How to play Bippo Racers

1. Choose a friend from the grid of eight. Each card shows five stats: Speed, Acceleration, Handling, Weight and Grip. Every friend's stats add up to the same total, so nobody is simply better; pick the one that suits how you like to drive. Then pick a speed class: Chill is gentle, Zoom is the standard and Blast is fast.
2. Accelerate with W or the up arrow, brake and reverse with S or the down arrow, and steer with A and D or the left and right arrows. On a phone the kart accelerates by itself: slide your left thumb anywhere on the left side of the screen to steer and press Brake to slow down. On a gamepad, the right trigger or A accelerates, the left trigger or B brakes and the left stick steers.
3. Watch the three bells at the start. Press and hold accelerate just before GO (on the last bell) for a Blast-off boost, but press too early and your engine coughs and sputters.
4. Press Space (or the Drift button) to hop. Keep holding it while you steer into a corner and you land in a drift. The longer and tighter you drift, the more the sparks change colour: yellow, then purple, then rainbow. Let go to fire a boost; the rainbow boost is the biggest.
5. Drive through Party Boxes to win an item and press E, Enter or the Item button to use it. Hold the item button to keep a Sticky Sprinkle or a Bouncy Pear behind you as a shield, and hold back (S or down) while you let go to throw it backwards. Fizz Rockets boost you, Sticky Sprinkle leaves a syrup puddle that spins karts round, Bouncy Pears roll and bounce off walls, the Buzzy Bee chases the kart ahead of you and the Bubble Shield blocks one hit.
6. Collect the floating Gleams to fill your Blast Meter, then press Shift or the Blast button to spend a segment for a speed boost. Off the pier ramp, press hop in the air to do a trick; finish it before you land for a landing boost.
7. Race three laps. If you ever get stuck, hold R (or tap Rescue) and Fizz the helper bunny flies in under her balloon and drops you back on the road.

Bippo Racers tips and strategy

• Drift early. Start your hop just before the corner so the drift is already charging as you turn in; a long drift through Turn 1 easily reaches the rainbow sparks.
• Steering into the drift charges it faster; steering out of it charges slower but widens your line. Let go when the colour changes rather than holding on for ever.
• The Castle Gate archway through the sandcastle saves about a second, but its sprinkle-sand floor is slippery, so ease off the steering in there.
• Gleams over the pier ramp fill your Blast Meter in one go. Save a segment for the long boardwalk straight.
• Following right behind another kart for about a second and a half charges a Tailwind; pull out to the side to fire it and slingshot past.
• Keep a Sticky Sprinkle or Bouncy Pear trailing behind you while you lead: it blocks one item from behind.
• A Buzzy Bee goes for the kart just ahead of you, so use it when you are close behind someone.
• Hit a Fizz Pad (the glowing arrows on the road) for a big burst of speed, and line up the one on the back stretch so you hit it straight.
• Heavy friends lose less speed when they scrape a wall and win the shoving matches; light friends get back up to speed fastest after a hit.

Meet the eight friends and their karts

Bippo, the brave honey-gold rocket mutt, drives the Junkyard Rocket, a stubby grape-purple fuel tank on mismatched wheels. Wrenna, his calm, clever big sister, built the Torque Tub, a teal toolbox roadster with a wrench for a roll bar. Rivet, the grumpy-browed brass robot with the monocle he doesn't need, steams along in the Boilerplate, a kettle on wheels. Puddle, the giggly soda-jelly kitten, bounces around in the Fizz Float, an upside-down bottle cap on balloon tyres.

Gilly the axolotl lifeguard races the Splash Ring with a swim-ring bumper and beach-towel wheels. Mellow the capybara sits up to his chest in the Hot Tub, a steaming wooden barrel, with Peep the little orange bird on his towel. Nibs the reformed picnic bandit drives the Picnic Dash, a wicker hamper on pancake wheels, and Clompy, the tiny donkey with the loudest bray on the planet, rides the Hay Wagon with a basket of pears on the back. Each friend has their own voice, taunts and victory dance.

The Sprinkle Cup: four tracks and a Grand Prix

The Sprinkle Cup has four tracks. Sprinkle Beach Breeze is a rounded beach loop of about 640 metres: you start on the boardwalk past a stand of cheering Gumbits, sweep around a giant sprinkle sandcastle (or take the slippery Castle Gate archway straight through it), run along the surf past rolling beach balls, cross a wooden pier with a ramp at the end and weave back through fizzy-bottle trees. It has walls everywhere, so nobody can fall off, which makes it the perfect first race for younger players.

Tidepool Twister is a figure eight on Gilly's lifeguard beach that crosses itself on a stone bridge. From lap two the tide washes over the inside of the tidepool loop and geysers spout through it, and the Driftwood Hop jumps a little cove to cut the dune corner. Kite Breeze Bluffs climbs a cliff switchback under swooping kites to a huge jump between two bluffs, with a fan's updraft to carry you across, and the Updraft Edge shortcut launches you off a ledge inside the first hairpin. Belfry Bash spirals up and round a bell tower past swinging bells, with the Tower Stairs shortcut for anyone who saves a boost for the climb.

Race them one at a time in Single Race, or all four in a row in the Grand Prix: eight racers score points in every race, and the top three after the last track win the Golden, Silver or Brass Bolt trophy for that cup and class.

Time Trial puts you alone on the track in Blast class with a full Blast Meter and no items. Your best run is saved as a translucent ghost to race next time, every track has a staff ghost to beat for a Ghost Badge, and Time Trial times and best laps go on the leaderboards.

Items and Party Boxes

Party Boxes are spinning confetti-wrapped cubes floating over the road. Drive through one and a roulette spins in the corner of the screen until it lands on your item. What you get depends on both your place and how far you are behind the leader, so the karts at the back get the big boosts and the leaders get defensive items. There are twelve: the Fizz Rocket and Fizz Six-Pack boosts, Sticky Sprinkle, Bouncy Pear and the Pear Basket, the Buzzy Bee that chases the kart ahead, Bubble Shield, the Yo-Yo Tether, the Bray Horn, the Confetti Cannon, the Golden Pear and the Hush Moon that hunts down the leader.

Drifting, tricks, Tailwind and Blast

Drifting is the heart of Bippo Racers. A drift takes corners tighter than ordinary grip steering, and it charges a boost through three tiers named Sunny, Grape and Sprinkle after the colour of the sparks. Tricks off ramps give a landing boost, Tailwind rewards following another kart closely, and the Blast Meter lets you store up Gleams and spend them when you choose. None of it is needed to finish a race, but all of it makes you faster.

Playing on a phone or tablet

Bippo Racers is built for touch. The kart accelerates by itself, your left thumb steers with a slider that starts wherever you touch, and the right side has a big Drift button, an Item button, a Blast button and Brake. Hold your phone sideways for a full-screen view with the controls over the race, or upright with the race on top and the controls below. You can switch to steering buttons or tilt steering in Settings, and Smart Steering helps younger players stay on the road.

Coming next

Next come the Fizzwood Cup with four forest tracks (including a night race on a firefly golf course), online races against other people with bots filling the empty seats, local split screen and the Bobble Pop battle mode.

Bippo Racers FAQ