You recognize a recreation goes to be good when the tutorial is shorter than the time it took to obtain it. Haste: Damaged Worlds is the quickest recreation I’ve performed this yr, and the demo kicks off in lower than 30 seconds.
The premise is very simple: The world is falling aside, and the one approach to survive is to run actual quick. Haste doesn’t waste time supplying you with a lecture about why any of that is taking place. It drops you into the footwear of Zoe, a lady with the world’s tightest pair of glasses, and has you sliding and gliding down slopes earlier than anybody says a phrase.
Sonic the Hedgehog needs to be jealous, as a result of Haste is all about residing in that blissful second of uninterrupted velocity. When you get going, it’s principally a one-button recreation: Your spacebar helps you gently descend and kiss the bottom earlier than you elevate off once more. Good landings fill a gauge that permits you to experience a hoverboard, which helps you get well from smashing into rocks or getting caught by waves of corruption. The one moments the place you’re not flying by the world are whenever you cease to purchase some upgrades or speak to your mates.
Haste is a roguelike the place you get to decide on the place to run on each, uh, run. Each time you cross the end line, you’re given a alternative about the place to go subsequent. Some ranges have you ever racing by a black-and-white world to color it with life once more, whereas others have you ever dodging black holes as you seek for the exit earlier than time runs out. Trails of glowing crystals information your method by every degree, and you’ll spend them on upgrades whenever you discover a store. Many upgrades give small boosts to your velocity or well being, however some, like one which restores your well being whenever you gather crystals, direct your path by a degree.
The demo ends with a boss battle towards a giant robotic who rains lava down on the extent. You must thread the needle till you possibly can ram straight into him. Sustaining your velocity is the one method you possibly can escape from the spreading lava, incentivizing you to seek for alternatives for an ideal landing to extend your hoverboard bar. And also you may wish to scoop up small clusters of crystals to maintain your well being topped off, which provides to the complexity.
In a recreation with clunkier mechanics, a boss battle with that a lot to handle may go off the rails, however Haste’s fluidity retains it on monitor. Swerving by its ranges feels easy even whenever you’re not doing so scorching, and it rewards you for making dangerous performs. When all the pieces goes proper, it’s like enjoying a rhythm recreation the place you possibly can’t appear to overlook a observe. It solely breaks the circulation when it ends.
Developer Landfall — which launched the goofy multiplayer horror recreation Content material Warning not that way back — expects to launch Haste: Damaged Worlds someday later this yr.
