How to Create a Race in Hop.Earth — and Get Friends Into It

Read This Before You Build a Race

Built a route, hit Start Race, and nothing that felt like a race happened? You didn't do anything wrong. The developers are direct about it:

That explains what confuses everyone scrolling the Latest Races list. It has columns for top speed and average speed, and almost every entry reads 0.00. It isn't a broken leaderboard — it's what happens when people find a fun map tool, draw a route, look at it, and drive off. The scoring layer behind those columns isn't finished.

So it's closer to dropping a pin for a friend — meet me here, we're driving this — than organising a race weekend. Still worth doing. Just not a stopwatch.

Creating a Race, Step by Step

The whole flow lives on the map screen and takes under a minute.

1. Get into a lobby. Under OFFICIAL, use LOBBY — "Start Here!" by adminman. It drops you into Monte Carlo by default — which is why so many public races are named after the coordinates 43.73, 7.42.
2. Click "Create a race." The map switches into route-building mode.
3. Click your start point. A green START marker drops exactly where you clicked.
4. Click your finish point. A red FINISH marker appears and the game traces a route between the two along the real road network — not a straight line, but an actual drivable path.
5. Read the route panel. It reports the stats for the line you just drew; the fields are broken down below.
6. Choose Start Race, Share race, or Reset Race. Start drops you in to drive it, Share hands you the invite link, Reset clears both markers so you can redraw.

If the first attempt comes out ugly — a route that doubles back, a finish line across a motorway — hit Reset Race and place the markers again. The path the game picks isn't always the one you had in mind.

What the Route Panel Actually Tells You

This panel quietly reports real-world data no write-up about the game has mentioned. Here's a route measured in-game on Monaco's waterfront:

Read Surface and Elevation before you share anything. Flat asphalt is the safe bet for first-timers; elevation change drives far better, but that's where the terrain quality of your region starts to matter.

Playing With Friends: the Server Link

Multiplayer runs on session codes. While you're in a session, look at the bottom of the screen for a URL in this shape, with a copy button beside it:

hop.earth/?server=XXXXX

That code identifies your session. Copy it, send it over, and opening it loads them into your world rather than a fresh one of their own. No friends list, no party system, no invite queue — it's a link, and that's the whole design.

Each session gets its own code, so share the link in front of you, not one you saved last week. Once people are in, two keys carry the social layer: T chats, TAB shows the round scoreboard. Both are in the full controls list.

Which Lobby You're In Changes Everything

The lobby screen sorts rooms into two groups, and the difference isn't cosmetic.

So if a community room won't load, check whether it's one of the dead ones before blaming your connection. If the room is fine and the world still won't build, that's a different problem with its own fixes.

The Latest Races table underneath is the best evidence of who's playing. Among the coordinate names sit real streets from everywhere: 시흥대로, бул. Димитров, Plaça d'en Weyler, Strada Calea Ieşilor. Wondering if anyone outside your timezone is here? That's your answer.

Picking a Route People Will Actually Enjoy

Anyone can drop two markers. A route that survives contact with four other players takes about thirty seconds of thought.

Build where the terrain is sharp

The planet isn't rendered evenly. Most runs on 30 m base elevation data, but France and Spain — including Corsica, the Balearics and the Canary Islands — go up to a 2 m grid. On a route with real elevation change that gap is enormous: cambers, crests and switchbacks that read as terrain instead of a smooth ramp. The where to drive guide covers the regions worth the trip.

Keep it short at first

The measured example above is 1.82 km, a sensible first route. Every road and intersection is generated on each player's own device as they travel, so a longer route crosses more freshly-built terrain — and the developers acknowledge "some jank when approaching the next tile." A short, dense route beats an epic that spends half its length loading.

Warn people about the intersections

Roughly 95% of roads and intersections render correctly, but the broken remainder sits exactly where routes go: junctions. Your friends will get stuck. Warn them that holding J jumps the car over broken geometry — the official workaround, and where the game's name comes from. Tapping X resets the car; holding it returns you to the road.

Expect newcomers on foot and confused

The complaint that follows every invite link is the one all over Hacker News: "Where's the car? 'F' does nothing." Send one line with your link — hold X to summon a car, let it settle, then press F. The car not spawning fix explains why those keys get confused so reliably.

Questions People Actually Ask

Can you race other players in Hop.Earth right now?

Not as a timed, scored competition. The developers state the game is currently free roam and that racing and GPS navigation are coming soon. You can build a route, share a session and drive it together — what's missing is the layer that times and ranks you.

How do I play Hop.Earth with friends?

Copy the hop.earth/?server=XXXXX link from the bottom of your screen and send it over. Opening that URL puts them in your world instead of a new one. Use T to chat once they're in.

Why does my race show 0.00 top speed?

Because scored racing isn't live yet. Nearly every entry on the public list reads 0.00 for the same reason: routes get created far more often than driven, and there's no finished timing system behind those columns.

Can I stop strangers joining my session?

There's no lock or password — the link is the access. Your only real control is who you give it to, and each new session issues a new code, so keep the current one out of public posts.

Why is the community lobby list marked UNSTABLE?

The developers marked it that way themselves. Hop.Earth is openly early access — expect "work-in-progress mechanics, and lots of bugs" — and player-run rooms are its least stable part. Some appear in the list already down.

More Hop.Earth Guides

Unofficial fan site. PlayHopEarth.com is an independent player-made guide. It is not affiliated with, endorsed by or operated by Hop.Earth or its developer, and it does not host the game — every play link points to the official site at hop.earth. Controls were verified in-game; you can confirm them yourself by holding H in game. Map data © OpenStreetMap contributors; elevation data © EU/ESA/IGN/CNIG.