VEKTOR 2089

Game: VEKTOR 2089 [Early Access Mode]

Developer: Impbox

Download Link: https://impbox.itch.io/vektor2089

MSRP: $5.00

If there is any genre that I get absolutely giddy over, it's futuristic racers. My zealous love for the F-Zero series knows no bounds and it has been absolute hell for me to not get a new installment since F-Zero Climax. So, I do what I can in this troublesome time of F-Zero drought by playing games of a similar caliber, be it WipEout and the clone games it inspires, FAST RMX which while good didn't quite scratch that F-Zero itch, for me at least. I've been on the hunt for a futuristic racing game to sink my teeth into and itch.io has definitely showcased its fair share of futuristic racers. One that caught my eye that I wanted to give a try was VEKTOR 2089.

Developed by Impbox, VEKTOR 2089 is a top-down futuristic racer with retro-inspired graphics and fast-paced racing action. I am a little hesitant to cover this game, as it isn't entirely finished. Heck, it's going through some graphical revisioning as I speak, which is great to hear. I'm very glad that this game is still being worked on, as itch.io has had multiple cases of unfinished projects being abandoned over the years, which saddens me. But I digress. 

Right off the bat, what attracted to me this game is the aesthetic, not to mention the great gifs that sell the fast-paced racing to a tee. The pixelated graphics along with the 60 FPS framerate were enough to drag me in, though I was almost already sold on the fact that it's a futuristic racer, so, in a way, I felt some sense of obligation to check it out. I assumed that it was going to be similar to Impbox's PICO-8 racing prototype that he also has on his profile, and my assumptions were correct to some fields and wrong in others. 

Graphically the PICO-8 concept and VEKTOR 2089 are similar in track design and controls are similar in concept with left and right arrows to steer and z to accelerate. VEKTOR 2089 adds on to these concepts with the brake acting as also a drift function to navigate turns better. The boost has been moved from the up arrow to the SHIFT key, which is weird on my end since I'm used to the PICO-8 game's controls. On the topic of controls, I like to play my racing games with a controller. That sounds all well and good, but I find the controls on a controller to be different for some strange reason. I find myself comparing the different control schemes to Kirby Air Ride's "Top Ride" mode where your two machines had two different control styles: one being based on the direction of your control stick and the other based on left and right turns. I like to use the latter control style as I find it easier to utilize, and that's all well and good when using a keyboard. Strangely though, the control scheme for a controller is based on the former vehicle's description, and I had a hard time adjusting to that. I do wish that there was a way to adjust the control layout for using a controller, and I hope that gets addressed.

VEKTOR 2089 boasts multiple racing modes: championship, where you race on multiple tracks in a set order and whoever accumulates the most points after four races wins, single race, where a single event is held on a track of your choice, time attack, where you race to get the fastest time on a track, versus mode for up to 4 players and "hotseat" for competitive time attack, similar to TrackMania. You get a lot of variety for your modes and the vehicles you can race as, with five unique vehicles across multiple different race teams that have different stats. You can also have gif replays by hitting the F9 key, which I would utilize, but with my keyboard having the "FN" key, it's fairly awkward to utilize. Other modes include a track editor and a vehicle editor as well, which I wish I was well versed with pixel art to use, but alas I am not. Still, very neat features to include.

The music for this game is stellar as well, with it being composed by French electronic music group, Dubmood. Their electro-chiptune tracks complement the game's vibe very well. Here's a link for their other music undertakings on Bandcamp.

I do feel like there is a lot of potential to be had here. I like the aesthetic, as I love futuristic racing games, the music is great, the art direction is great. I just wish the controls when using a controller were consistent with the keyboard controls. Maybe what I say will be outdated and get addressed, but I am looking forward to the future of this game. Check out yourself if you want!

I'll Take You To Tomato Town!

Game: I'll Take You To Tomato Town

Developer: adamgryu

Download Link: https://adamgryu.itch.io/tomato-town

Shopping is fun... I guess? I don't know how to start this. I guess I could start with some commentary on people getting quarantined due to COVID-19, but eh, I don't really feel like going all-in on that joke as that horse has been beaten to death faster than a Reddit meme template, but I digress. Instead, let's reminisce the moments of shopping for your buddies, who need arbitrary shit stuff from the store and it is your responsibility to get said stuff. Which is the premise of I'll Take You To Tomato Town.

I went shopping for myself today and it was somewhat relaxing despite the hysteria right now. Tomato Town, however, is anything but relaxing. You have 3 minutes and change to find all the items your friends are looking for and leave the store in a reasonable amount of time. It's like a reverse retail worker's nightmare, where instead of trying to maintain your sanity throughout the day of taking care of customers, you're trying to maintain your sanity by finding the mustard in Tomato Town, which if you don't know the layout of the store by memory, is going to be near impossible unless you look in a very specific spot :/.

But what are the nice parts of I'll Take You To Tomato Town? There are quite a few things that can be said like the graphics were nice and colorful and the in-game physics are hysterical, wherein whenever you pick an item off the shelf, all the other items next to it go flying and make a huge mess. I also like the informal way your friends on the phone tell you to pick up their stuff from the supermarket. The informal tone and irreverent nature of it add some level of mockery towards you as you feel like you're being tortured in some way by your friends.

I do kind of wish that the game had more space to work with and that the placement of items didn't feel so arbitrary, but the game is free to play so I can't really complain too much, even if the other customers like to push you around and obstruct your movement and vision. I definitely feel like this game likes to push you around as if it's supposed to be some form of torture for the shopper as some form of catharsis for retail workers. 

So once you get all the items your friends need, they call and tell you that the card they lent you has no money on it! Aw shucks, those darn rascals! So now you have to steal as much inventory as you can without getting caught and then leave the store. If the store closes before you leave or you get caught by the security guard, it's game over for you.

The game isn't super deep or an allegory of shoplifting or hoarding or friends who lack envy for the torture they put you through. However, it is a simple fun game to play during the time that you may be sitting at home during potential quarantine or you come across this blog by poor chance and have to put up with my mediocre writing ability. Whatever the case may be, do give this game a shot and have some fun!

Verdict: Would Strangle My Friends Over the Phone/I Finally Found the Mustard!!!

Cosmic Rochambo

Game: Cosmic Rochambo

Developer: Sean Dick

Download Link: https://dean-sick.itch.io/cosmic-rochambo
MSRP: $5.00

I suck at keeping this thing active, but here goes nothing! HEY KIDDOS! DO YOU LIKE ANIME!? Yes, you do, you dorks. You can't go anywhere without finding something anime-inspired. It's like a disease with no cure! Okay, so that's a bit melodramatic, but still, so much of media nowadays has taken a ton of influence from Japanese animation, most notably, the shounen genre. Now, for all you non-fluent anime denizens who think all of anime is most likely a gateway to child pornography (that sounded a lot better in my head), shounen is a genre of Japanese media that mostly caters to adolescent boys. Most shounen anime or manga is usually something action-adventure related with epic battles on an over the top scale, so stuff like Dragon Ball Z, Naruto, My Hero Academia, One Piece, Bleach, Attack On Titan, the list goes on and on. So with my tirade of describing anime out of the way, you might be wondering what this has to do with the game at hand? Well, Cosmic Rochambo, and its sister game, Rebop Blasters take heavy influence from the shounen anime genre. I'll get to Rebop Blasters in a second, but I first want to discuss Cosmic Rochambo.

So the premise of this game is that you and your adversary are having a duel of epic proportions. You are fighting in space! Your controls are basic: if using a controller, you use your joystick or d-pad to move around and press any of the face buttons to perform a superpowered dash attack or tap to parry. Your goal is to beat and bang against your opponent until they hit the edge of the arena. Do this a set number of times and you win. There are multiple arenas to face-off in, such as a cube, a sphere, or a very large arena that in my opinion is super disorienting and I don't exactly recommend fighting in. You can choose the color of your fighter as well, and that's pretty much the gist of it.

I enjoy the presentation of this game. It's vibrantly colorful and pleasant to look at, though there could be too many effects for those photosensitive. The game definitely hits the vibe of being an epic battle in an alternate dimension where you're zooming around and fighting and martial art fisticuffs ala Dragon Ball Z. It's a cool multiplayer game that you can have couch co-op play with. I do kind of wish there were online capabilities with this game, but it's a good proof of concept.

If there is any sort of criticism I can throw at this game, it would probably be the functioning of the AI. The AI is kind of inconsistent with their difficulty setting, with, in my experience, easy being super aggressive and the hardest difficulty being fairly passive. The most you get out of their difficulty is when your dash attacks collide and you have to perform certain inputs to win the minigame. The harder the AI, the faster they perform the inputs. Speaking of which, when you get into these situations, I recommend using the D-pad for directional inputs, as the joystick is not always that responsive for those inputs

Despite some criticisms I have with the game, I did enjoy my time with it. I highly recommend giving it a shot and as I am writing this, the game is currently free to pick up off of itch.io, as they are having a COVID-19 quarantine sale across the site. Go nuts!