Overview – developed and published by Baardmoeder, Incremental Retro Racing is an arcade style pixel racing game inspired by classics of the genre like Outrun. Earn stars by hitting top speeds and unlock additional vehicles, upgrades and modification options while hitting an endless number of tracks. This title is available exclusively for PC platforms with Steam and SteamOS support, with a link to the game at the bottom of this review.
Disclaimer: before I get into the review, I would like to thank Baardmoeder for providing the copy of Incremental Retro Racing that was used for this piece, via the Keymailer service. The provision of this software has not influenced the contents of this review, all thoughts and opinions contained within are my own.
Now with the introductions out of the way, let’s get into the review. As there is no story for this release, I will be going directly into discussing the gameplay. I will also be referring to the game as the abbreviated name of IRR for the sake of brevity.
Gameplay – Incremental Retro Racing is a throwback racing game, where players must floor it along varied locations and multi lane highways. As the player makes their way along the long roads, there will be traffic on the road that players will need to avoid. The driving is rather simple, with the player moving left and right, taking breakneck turns and the ability to use a turbo boost. There will also be buildings that encroach on the track, adding to the obstacles.
While hitting top speed along the tracks, players will earn stars when passing set checkpoints adding them to the total for the stage. The star total will carry through between each stage. At the end of the stage and before the next one begins with a rolling start, the player will be able to access the unlock shop. Here players can spend stars to unlock upgrades, additional features and new vehicles, with costs increasing with each purchase made.
The upgrades that players can unlock include performance upgrades, improving speed, handling and adding more turbo uses for the track. Alongside the vehicle improvements, the player will also be able to unlock star bonuses, adding the ability to earn stars from hitting high speeds and overtaking cars. Players can also pick up star multipliers, which will cause the total for players to rapidly balloon, as additional color stars will be added.
Vehicles that players can add to their garage include the standard sports cars, classic muscle cars and general runabout vehicles. But there are also more unique vehicles that players can get, like a dump truck, oil tanker and even a motor cycle. The different motors that players can pick up have their own capabilities, offering varied stats for the players to select from. There are many vehicles to unlock, which can be seen on the road during stages.
The most interesting of the unlockables for this game are the stage editor settings, which let players modify the way that stages will look and play out. As players unlock new mods, settings will be added to the pause menu that players can freely adjust. The adjustments that can be made include changing the cosmetic looks of the stages, with colors of the roads and stage elements, alongside the number of lanes, turns and valleys in stages.
When making modifications to the stages, they are applied to the next stage, as each of the tracks is generated during the transition between stages. This track generation makes IRR endless, with no real ending to the game and a lack of achievements, being an unfortunate downside. In IRR, the only goal is to obtain all of the in game unlocks, which may be a downside for players as that is the only form of progression.
As this is a retro style game, there are several visual settings that can be modified in the main menu. To give the look of the game a more retro feel, players will be able to add different CRT effects to emulate the look of classic tube screens. Players can adjust the brightness, add glow and scanlines, as well as effects that will distort the look of the screen. These are a nice touch, but they don’t add anything to the experience of the game aside from aesthetics.
Now with the gameplay covered, it is time to discuss the other aspects of this release, starting with the controls.
Controls – IRR uses a very simple control scheme with only a few buttons that are used to play the game, with accelerate, brake and turbo needed for vehicle control. The handling of the vehicles when moving side to side are pretty reactive, but are impacted by the vehicle chosen. There is the ability to fully adjust the controls, remapping them on controller, keyboard and even steam deck, allowing players to use any controller they want.
Difficulty – there is no real difficulty to the game, as there is no significant failure state for this release, with only a timer that ticks down during play. As there is no ending, there is no real way to win or lose the game, so there is a real lack of difficulty with IRR. But that doesn’t mean there is a lack of challenge, as modifying the track can make things a little tricky. This is due to the density of traffic and the roadside elements that push into the track.
Presentation – IRR is a real throwback to the games that inspired it, with the Super Scaler style sprites that the game uses, showing dynamic roads and cars. This works well but has the capacity for some hiccups with sprites, and everything looks rather static and basic with no car animations. The sound is okay, with some decent music that is rather enjoyable, but there are issues with the effects as they can start to drone, especially the star sounds which get annoying.
Final Thoughts – I really like old super scaler racers like Outrun and Super Hang-On, where speed feels natural while burning down long stretches. So seeing this was coming out was pretty interesting to me. However, my experience with the game was a pretty mixed bag, with awkward collision detetction and driver behaviour. While I did enjoy the game loop, with the high speed and general arcade feel of the game, it does feel rather lacking in some areas.
There is a lot of content on offer, but due to the lack of a definitive ending, there is no true goal to work towards aside from unlocking all of the content. Due to this, the game fails to stick the landing as the endless nature of it can become repetitive quickly, potentially boring players after a while. The lack of achievements also adds to the potential tedium, as there is no way to measure progress. So I’m not sure I can recommend the game unless it really appeals to you.
In the end, I give Incremental Retro Racing a final score of 3/5. This title offers a rather fun arcade style throwback, with endless gameplay and a tremendous amount of unlockable content, but it is sadly let down by any lack of true progression or ending to the game. if you want to check this title out for yourself, you can find a link to the game at the bottom of the review.
Link to Steam version (HERE)
W.Kohaku Media 