This game seems to have promise. It looks pretty decent, and if you set the speed to fast, it's quite nice to zip along. The developers also seem to be pretty responsive; there was a bug that prevented me from progressing further, and they fixed it within a few days.
I'd recommend this game with a caveat: It's in early access, so it definitely needs some updates and improvements. It needs some polish, and some more to do, but as long as you know that, and expect that, but just want to feel the motion of zipping along a track for a bit, this might be for you.
Some improvement suggestions:
- There's no way to really play this game in seated mode unless you're in a spinning chair. And if you stand, expect to spin around a lot. The controls don't let you spin; you control your movement by a rocket you're holding, but when you have to turn, there's no control for that. You have to physically turn. This will be a problem for people who have handicaps, or simply don't feel like physically turning around a lot.
- The menu needs more options. It's bare-bones right now, and there's not much you can do. Audio, graphics, seating preferences, dominant hand selection, this doesn't exist yet.
- You can't change which hand holds the rocket that propels you. It's your left hand, and if you want to change it to your right, you can't. Would be nice to be able to change with hand propels you, and which holds the baseball bat, in further levels.
- When you beat a level, the menu that shows your score etc is far away, and you can't move closer to see it, because after you get past the goal, you're stuck where you are. Makes it hard to read. The menus in general are not easy to read.
- Once you get the baseball bat, it's a bit confusing as to why exactly it's a bat. The stars make a soft popping noise when you touch them with the bat. Could have used a wand or something else. A bat makes me think I'm going to smash something, but in this case, you don't have to swing or anything; just touch the star. Would be more satisfying if the stars smashed into pieces with a shattering sound, or something.
- Holding the trigger down permanently to move gets a bit tiring. Maybe some kind of alternative form of control? Say, you can choose to move at top speed all the time, but squeezing the trigger brakes. That way, you still need to use it for control, but you don't spend the entire game clenching your finger. Or maybe there's a better way to control this, but something would be good.
- While the game looks pretty good, it feels a little repetitive. The world looks good but just...feels a bit empty. I like the feeling of speeding along the track, but that would only hold my attention for so long. I've played this for a decent amount of time, but haven't gotten through every level. That said, the store page says there are 25 levels.
I think that this game needs to polish up a bit, as well as add some more mechanics that would keep interest in playing. But it is in early access, so I didn't expect a perfect game upon purchasing. Hopefully this will be built up even more, because it could end up a great game.
