The game involves racing around a variety of tracks while using several weapons, including items that make the racer's speed increase, missiles, and slime.

The goal of the game is to either finish a race ahead of other racers, who are controlled by the computer and other players, or complete a circuit in the fastest time.

Pick-ups, such as missiles and slime, allow racers to hit others with the objects, causing them to spin and lose control.

By running through these tokens, a kart collects them and fills cells on its speed boost bar.

Speed Freaks was produced by Padraig Crowley and designed and developed by the SD Team at Funcom Dublin in Ireland.

As an example, the developers cited that bumping into a wall in the game results in far less of an impact than doing the same in real life.

[6] The developers used hand-optimised assembly code for the graphics engine in order to make it fit into the small instruction cache of the Playstation hardware.

Sony acquired the rights to publish the game in the region as early as the summer of 1999, but held back as to avoid competing with Crash Team Racing.

[18] GamePro said that Speed Punks offers an enjoyable arcade racing experience despite its shortcomings.