#oneaday Day 872: Shaving off the seconds

I love Trackmania, and I'm really enjoying the new one. I'm glad that I stumped up the whopping £8 for the "standard" access, because I think I'm having the most fun with the "Track of the Day" mode, wherein a submission from the community is reviewed and rated by the community, then picked for a whole day's racing in both single player and multiplayer. When it's all over, you can keep the track, even if you don't subscribe for another year of standard or club access afterwards.

I really enjoy playing these courses multiplayer, as there's a real sense of camaraderie as everyone tries to make it around together. And with the huge variance in skill level throughout the Trackmania playerbase, there's a fun feeling of having the opportunity to hang out with the "big boys" and perhaps get some ideas from them, while still having fun yourself.

Yes, I have never come anywhere near close to winning a Trackmania multiplayer match; in today's Track of the Day efforts, I came 53rd out of 60. But it didn't matter; as I noted in my video the other day, Trackmania has always been a game where, more than anything, it is fun just to participate. It's ridiculously fun to drive around these crazy tracks, develop your skills and simply feel yourself improving — even if those improvements don't let you get anywhere near the top of the leaderboards.

For the last few days, a quick spell on Trackmania has become a bit of a daily routine; it's nice having a regular activity like this to do, and feeling like you're sharing it with other people, even if people are mostly too busy racing to chat. (That said, my experience so far with the Trackmania community is that they are thoroughly pleasant and more than willing to help each other out while simultaneously engaging in healthy competition — even if you tell someone how to complete a track more efficiently, they still need to be able to do it, after all!)

I bet it'd be a fun game to stream, though as always I have a few reservations — not least of which would be the fact that I wonder if people seeing a "Trackmania stream" would be expecting someone who is good at Trackmania! I know I'd certainly enjoy watching someone fumbling their way through though — maybe I'll give it a go sometime.