I've always had a hope, ever since I was little—that I would, someday, be able to run really fast and hit a rock and break all of my bones.
Okay, that's not the exact dream, but as a mentally hyperactive kid with a strong imagination, I did spend a lot of my car journeys running an imaginary stickman along parallel traffic, or walking my fingers like legs across various obstacles in my home. You see, we didn't have tablets back then, so we had to fill in the time between episodes of Bamzooki (look it up).
Luckily, Haste: Broken Worlds is here to finally make my dream come true. This roguelike bone-breaking simulator has an available demo during Steam Next Fest, and it's rather worth the concussions you'll be enduring.
If you've played Descenders before, just imagine that game without the bike and less flips—if you haven't, then let me explain. Haste is a game about strategic falling. At the start of each level, your character'll take off at a pace—when they hit an incline, they'll carry on sailing into the air in a physics-defying but ultimately satisfying way.
The trick is to make sure you come down at a good angle, and your only tools to do so are your innate sense of digital depth perception, some rough mental calculations, and a button that mercifully lets you speed up your descent in case you get either of the first two things wrong. Smoother landings lead to bigger boosts, and more energy to use your special ability.
If this sounds scary in a roguelike context, don't worry—Haste is decently forgiving. You start off with a health bar and a trio of hearts. Eat through your health (or plummet into the abyss) and you'll lose a heart, lose all three hearts, and your run's over. In each level, your job is to zip through as quickly and as cleanly as possible.
To keep things from getting stale, you have a character-specific ability (there's just one available in the demo, a hoverboard that can be strategically deployed to go even faster) and items to purchase with Sparks, which can be both passive and active. Also, sometimes the game will try to blow you up.
Its randomised levels include hazards to keep you on your toes, like giant lasers and giant missiles. There do seem to be bosses, though the demo only showcases one—which you damage by flinging your body into them hard enough to make them die. Sun Tzu was missing a trick, because it turns out giving yourself concussions is a valid battle tactic, as long as you're giving your opponent more.
Visually-speaking, the game's also looking very pretty. Some gorgeous character artwork's being flexed here, and the environments are nice and colourful—and the wave of doom, which eats away at the level behind you (and devours you if you go too slow) is appropriately panic-inducing.
I'm really just hankering for more. The demo's regrettably short, and I think what'll really give this game the juice is a variety of character options and terrain to slam into. Still, the proof of concept is strong with this one—and I'm looking forward to seeing how forcefully I can hurl myself into objects in the months to come. Oh, and how the game's turning out, too. Haste: Broken Worlds doesn't have a release date yet, but one of its characters ominously promises me it'll be sooner than we all think. Take that however you will.
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