CTR Decrypted

Crash Team Racing

How do I configure the options?

Install ctr.apworld, then open the Archipelago Launcher and choose Generate Template Options. Select Crash Team Racing to create a YAML file with every available setting and value documented inside it. The defaults provide the full randomizer experience. For a gentler first seed, use vanilla warp-pad unlock requirements or reduce the two-stage gate and trap settings.

A YAML that sets no content gets the original game's shape: the 18 original race tracks, 5 Gem Cups, 4 Crystal Challenges and the five garages, shuffled onto the 27 warp pads, with the cup races drawn. Custom tracks and Cortex Vortex join the same pool. YAML files from v0.2.x need a new look: option names that are gone are ignored without a message. A v0.2.x room plays on the v0.2.4 client only.

What does randomization do to this game?

CTR Archipelago turns Adventure mode into a multiworld. A seed can randomize warp-pad requirements and destinations, boss garages, hub doors, Gem Cups, and the items awarded by your events. Your available locations can include Trophy Races, CTR Token Challenges, relic Time Trials, boss races, Gem Cups, Crystal Bonus Rounds, Oxide races, and additional finishing-position checks.

Progression comes from items received through Archipelago rather than the local reward for the event you just completed. The server can send Trophies, Keys, CTR Tokens, relics, Gems, and other seed-specific items. Warp pads show the unclaimed rewards at their destination, including an Archipelago marker for items belonging to another player.

What do the AP item box colours mean?

With Item Box Locations on, AP item boxes stand on the tracks. By default each box shows the Archipelago colour of the item inside: purple for progression, blue for useful, cyan for filler and salmon for a trap. A box is pink until the game has looked up what is inside, a moment after connecting.

The YAML option Item Box Colours (color_boxes_by_item) turns this off for the whole slot, which is useful for races. Players can also turn the colours off for themselves in the game under OPTIONS → Archipelago → Item Box Colours. When the YAML turned them off, that row shows OFF (SEED) and cannot be turned on.

Options in detail

The help text for each option in the YAML is kept short. This section holds the extra detail for the options that need it.

Progressive Boost and Progressive Stats

With per_character, Progressive Boost adds 2 items per racer (3 with Blue Fire), so 32 to 48 items, and Progressive Stats adds 3 stats x 4 steps per racer, so 192 items. Both together can add up to 240 items. In a solo game every item comes back to you, so most of your checks will give you a progressive item. If the seed does not have enough locations for them, generation stops with an error that suggests which options to change.

Logic Difficulty

Boss races always need your first boost, and more if their track needs it. Oxide Station needs Ultimate Sacred Fire to finish unless Shortcut Knowledge is hard. Cortex Vortex always needs Ultimate Sacred Fire.

Platinum Time Trials need two boosts on easy and medium, and three on easy with Progressive Boost: Blue Fire on. hard keeps each track's own Platinum requirement.

Hit Character Checks

Ripper Roo, Papu Papu, Komodo Joe, Pinstripe and N. Oxide join your opponents when you win their boss race. Fake Crash joins after Crash Cove or Sewer Speedway, Penta Penguin after Blizzard Bluff or Polar Pass, and N. Tropy after Slide Coliseum or Turbo Track. When that race is not in your seed, Keys unlock the racer instead: Fake Crash at 1 Key, Penta Penguin at 2, N. Tropy at 3 and N. Oxide at 4. Up to three unlocked racers join a race, and racers you have not hit yet get a seat first.

Relic Race Perfect Checks

Each Relic Race gets one check, paid when the race ends with every time crate broken (the crate counter reads full). It needs the same access as that track's Sapphire Time Trial. With Progressive Boost on, every perfect check also needs Ultimate Sacred Fire at every Logic Difficulty, because some time crates sit on routes that need boost.

Wumpa Check

With per_track, every track with a Trophy Race or CTR Challenge in the seed has a Wumpa check. A boss track that races nowhere else keeps its Wumpa check, paid from the boss race. The old true and false values still work and mean global and off.

Wumpa Shop and Wumpa Goal

With the shop or a Wumpa goal on, every fruit you collect while already holding 10 is banked, and so is the fruit you hold when you finish a race. Fruit you receive that would take you past 10 is banked too, even outside a race. Quitting or restarting a race banks nothing you hold, and neither does a race lost to a DeathLink. Race fruit banks only in Adventure races; Arcade, Time Trial and Battle bank nothing. While racing, the HUD shows only this race's fruit. In a hub, a line below the relic, key and trophy counters shows your spendable fruit and the total banked over the whole seed, and the tracker's hub map shows how many shop slots that hub has left, how many are on sale and how many you can afford.

Each hub's save screen has a WUMPA SHOP row. The shop lists that hub's slots with their item, its owner and the price. Buying spends banked fruit and sends the check. Later slots go on sale once enough fruit has been banked over the whole seed; spending never takes that back. A slot that the server checks for you, for example after a Collect, shows SOLD and costs nothing. Buying needs a connection to the server. Any slot may hold any item, unless wumpa_shop_progression is excluded: then the shop holds no progression items. In logic a shop slot needs its hub and one finished race on a trophy track; prices and shelf unlocks are not in logic.

Wumpa Goal counts the fruit you banked over the whole seed. With N. Oxide in your goal, his garage also waits for that count, so beating him completes the goal.

Prices and shelf unlocks are first values and may change after play testing.

Boss Track Shuffle

Each of the four boss garages races on a track drawn for your seed: any of the 16 trophy tracks, Slide Coliseum or Turbo Track. The boss, its attacks, its Key and the garage door requirement do not change. The garage shows the drawn track, and so does the in-game tracker. A boss race on another track pays that track's Wumpa check, and its finish needs whatever that track needs, such as Ultimate Sacred Fire on Hot Air Skyway with Progressive Boost on. N. Oxide is not affected. Boss Track Pool narrows the tracks, and it also takes Cortex Vortex and custom tracks that are in the seed. If it leaves too few tracks for different boss tracks, generation stops with an error. A boss cup needs four different tracks of its own.

Cortex Vortex Track

With in_pool the seed may use Cortex Vortex on a warp pad or as a cup race, or not at all. With own_pad it is sure to get a pad. It takes no other content's checks with it. With Progressive Boost on, its finish checks need two Progressive Boosts.

Starting Roster

With vanilla_eight a new Adventure opens the original character select with Crash, Coco, Cortex, Tiny, N. Gin, Dingodile, Polar and Pura, as the original game does. Ripper Roo, Papu Papu, Komodo Joe, Pinstripe, Fake Crash, Penta Penguin, N. Tropy and N. Oxide are items; once one arrives, switch to them from the hub's character picker. The eight racers you start with are never asked for by a Racer-Locked Warp Pad.

Racer-Locked Warp Pads

A pad can only take a lock if the seed randomized its requirement, so the always-open N. Sanity Beach starter pads are never locked. When you return to the hub, the game gives you back the racer you chose.

Remove Playable Oxide

Oxide stays in the racer select screen as a locked racer you can never unlock. He still races against you in his boss races, and in ordinary races once Hit Character adds him to the field.

Trap Weights

The keys are icy_road, low_gravity, forced_usf, forced_boost, first_person, wumpa_wipeout, flatten, item_reroll, forced_use, empty_crates, weakened_kart, boost_blocker, wireframe, nitro, reverse_steering, red_potion, upside_down, mirror_mode, warpball_ambush and demo_camera. Each weight is a whole number from 0 to

  1. For example, this never picks First Person and picks Icy Road twice as often as its default:
trap_weights:
  first_person: 0
  icy_road: 10

Requirement Weights

For example, to ask for Keys and Sapphire Relics more often than Trophies:

requirement_weights:
  Trophy: 30
  Key: 40
  Sapphire Relic: 40

Warp Pad Rules

Set the first requirement of chosen warp pads yourself. Each entry names a pad (the pad's name without "Warp Pad") and gives an item and a count:

warppad_unlock_requirements: randomized
warp_pad_rules:
  Crash Cove: {item: free, count: 0}
  "Roo's Tubes": {item: Key, count: 1}
  Red Cup: {item: Red CTR Token, count: 3}
  Skull Rock: {item: AnyRelic, count: 2}

free needs count: 0. The other items are Trophy, Key, a CTR Token colour, a Relic tier, a Gem colour, and the sums AnyCtrToken, AnyRelic and AnyGem. Counts are whole numbers from 1 up to what the seed has of that item. Pads you leave out keep the randomized rule, and a track or cup shuffled onto a pad takes that pad's rule. Your rules ignore Requirement Weights, only set the first requirement of a pad (Two-Stage Gate Density still adds the second), and are never changed to make a seed work: a rule that cannot work stops generation with an error that names the pad, the item and the count. The option needs randomized or random_without_4_keys unlock requirements, and random_without_4_keys refuses a rule of 4 Keys.

Custom Tracks

custom_tracks is a list of track packages. Copy each entry from the track's download rather than writing it. The game checks the track's files against the entry when you connect. A custom track joins the pool with the original tracks, so a seed with more tracks than pads may leave it out; list its track key in required_entries to keep it. Cups take custom tracks up to Custom Races Per Cup. A pad needs the track installed, and the Seed tab of the game's Mods screen shows what a seed asks for and downloads it.

Which items can be in another player's world?

Progression, useful items, filler, and traps may all be placed in another player's world. Likewise, some of your locations will contain items for other players. The exact mix depends on the generated multiworld.

When the player receives an item, what happens?

Received progression updates the gates in Adventure mode. New items appear in the feed when you return to the hub. Traps arm silently and trigger during a later race rather than firing the moment they arrive.

Download the paired client and apworld from the CTR Archipelago releases page, then follow the setup guide to play. Report bugs and stuck seeds on the project issue tracker.