any place is a race track

Tinker Racers review for Xbox Series X

This week I bring you a shorter analysis for a smaller game. Well, the proposal of Rumbora party games, QUByte Interactive and Rumbora game studio It’s small in every way, but big in terms of concepts and fun. I will treat this text more as a few impressions than a heavy analysis, although at the end I will apply a guidance note which should not influence the opinion of the game too much. Without further ado, let’s check out this kind of game from buggy race on the living room carpet.

Tinker Racers collects testimony from the youth of these children that we couldn’t buy Hot Wheels tracks every Christmas. But we had enough imagination to build our own circuits for the craziest derbies. Four boxes, a few clips and a brightly colored ruler might become the perfect clue to pushing Micro Machines to the limit, or strollers up to a hundred. Well, a good afternoon of racing with the commentator and spectators (any doll that was in the room) was a guaranteed childhood fun.

The game offers us a campaign mode that goes through different places where “you could play”. Starting with the games room and through the kitchen, an office and other surprises, the Tinker Racers build their circuits with everything that is in the environment. In addition, among various utensils we have to win one or more opponents, who also play as a team, to add 5 points and move on to the next round. The thematic circuits offer more and more difficult variations in the same room. Not happy with this, the game adds handicaps like objects that hit random cars.

On the other hand, cars have a resistance indicator, and if it reaches zero, we are automatically disqualified. The resistance is not affected by a collision with other cars, but by a fall on a slope or a collision with objects in the environment. The way to win in the campaign is simple: take a precise distance with the rival team to score a point. If we win, we unlock the next track or thematic environment. Playing in the campaign is practically compulsory, as it is the only way to unlock the circuits to play in other modes.

When we have enough of competing to unlock more tracks, we can always go for other game modes or even couch co-op play for up to four players. Alternate modes include lap racing and other modes common to the genre. Not that there is too much variety, everything is based on the race and nothing more. And for that, we have a physics simulation that is very similar to the fantasy of small cars. In practice, everything is based on acceleration and rotation with the joystick. The turns and skids are like the ones any child would do when skidding an onomatopoeia with the stroller in hand.

The control is simple, but quite effective, hairpin turns are taken to turn further and watch the car skid loudly, while the jumps are covered fearlessly and without looking back. The only thing that can be confusing, or at least for me, is that the camera is positioned like a satellite and sometimes the car is upside down. What’s missing is the ability to unlock or choose which car to use, after all, we’re automatically assigned one every race. You can’t even choose the color.

In short, Tinker Racers has a simple and direct proposition full of childish nostalgia. For the low price at which it is sold, it can be a good buy to entertain the kids in the classroom at night. Unfortunately, I don’t think it can replace the feeling of physically playing with Micro Machines or Hot Wheels in the room. Ultimately, reality from a child’s imagination has no limits, while this title has a lot.