Padooko Play

How to play Padooko

Padooko is a multiplayer horse-racing game where you build your own yard, raise your horses and ride them yourself in live races. Everyone plays in the same world: one calendar, one race board, one market. Your new foal can break from the same gate as a horse another player has been bringing on for months. This page gives you the big picture; every topic has its own guide with the details.

The three loops

The easiest way to understand Padooko is to see it as three loops that run on different clocks and feed into one another.

1. The race loop: minutes

A race lasts between one and three minutes, and you are the one riding. Push the joystick forward (the arrow keys on a computer) to drive your horse on, pull it back to ease the pace, push it sideways to change lanes. When the rhythm ring glows, tap Urge and the horse gives you a short burst. The rider who spreads the stamina over the whole trip, sits in another horse's draft and waits for the right moment in the straight is the one who wins. See Races and Race tactics.

2. The yard loop: hours and days

Your yard keeps living when you are not playing. The server never sleeps: horses recover hour by hour, the feed bill is paid every game day, and now and then something happens in the yard. Your job is to train your horses, rest them, choose their feed and enter them in the right races. Every workout and every rest has a wait, and on screen those waits count down in real time. That makes Padooko a game best played in short, frequent visits. See Training and Yard care.

3. The season loop: weeks

The game has its own calendar. One game month is roughly one real week, and your horses age on that clock. Twelve game months make a season. Through the season, eight big feature races open one after another, each in its own month, over its own distance and surface. The standings build up over the season, and the trophies you win go into your trophy cabinet. On top of that, a themed weekly cup runs every real week. See Season and rating.

Your first steps

When you open your account, your groom brings you three foals. Each card shows the foal's Speed, Acceleration and Stamina today, the surface and distance it likes, and your groom's guess at its future. Pick one and give it a name; the first foal is a gift.

Then comes your first race: a free practice run. That is where you learn the controls. There is no entry fee and it leaves no wait on your horse. After the practice, three lobbies are waiting on the race board: Sprint, Mile and Long distance. For a step-by-step plan for your first days, read First days.

What makes a yard grow?

Progress in Padooko comes from several places, and none of them is enough on its own.

Doko: the game's money

The game's money is called Doko. Entry fees, feed, trainers, gear, jockey fees and new foals are paid in Doko; race prizes, the daily reward, quests, the weekly cup and horse sales bring Doko in. Doko is not a real currency and cannot be cashed out. There is no betting in Padooko: you enter races only with your own horse, and you earn only by how your horse finishes.

Who are you racing against?

Every race on the board is a field of eight, and the other horses belong to rival yards. To keep fields fair, the game gives every horse a power value and puts horses of similar power in the same race. Your new foal will not be drawn against the season's champion. If a lobby is full, or your horse doesn't fit that field's power range, you don't queue: a new division opens with the same conditions and your horse goes there.

One world, one account

Padooko plays on the web today; iOS and Android apps are coming soon. Your account and your yard live on the server, not in your browser or on your phone, so the yard you leave on the web is the yard you will find on your phone. Progress is never reset. Seasons close, but your horses, your trophies and your album stay with you.

The rhythm of the game

Padooko does not ask you to stay glued to the screen for hours. A typical day: in the morning you drop by, collect the daily reward, send the horses that are ready to work, enter a fresh horse in a lobby and ride the race. When you come back at lunch or in the evening, the waits are over and new jobs are ready. The house prize paid to horses finishing in the top four is at its highest in your yard's first races of the day and shrinks after that, so a few well-chosen races pay better than lots of random ones.

Tip: every screen has one main button. If you're not sure what to do, look at your horse's card first. The line under it tells you what the horse is waiting for: "ready," or the time left.

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