FutureGrind's tumbling cyberbikes are out now
Praxis makes perfect
Future sports are just terribly unsafe - today's case in point is FutureGrind, just released today. Dangling your fancy future motorcycle from inconsistently placed rails is bad enough, but if you let the wrong bit hit the wrong colour-coded surface, you just explode. Milkbag Games's latest is a health and safety nightmare, but a compelling concept for a game. Looking a bit like a blend of one of Redlynx's Trials games and a score-chasing skateboard 'em up, I've heard a lot of good things about this one, though haven't had the chance to play it myself. Check out a very neon trailer below.
While there's similarities to other games, FutureGrind seems very creative. Part platformer, part stunt-racer, part score attack. The tumbling future-bikes of cyberspace (apparently - there's some Deus Ex-ish story malarkey going on) are apparently volatile. If the wrong colour-coded wheel hits the wrong rail, the bike just explodes, so players are constantly flipping and twisting to try and grind the right colour for as long as possible, smoothly transition from rail to rail and not break their combo chain. Jumping and spinning are simple controls, but they get a lot of mileage out of them.
It looks like FutureGrind gets a lot out of its semi-simple concept, too. There's multiple bikes with different arrangements of wheels (only one wheel on one, one that doesn't care about colour, etc) and different powers, encouraging replay and different play-styles. And of course there's global leaderboards, because if you're playing a game like this, you're half in it for bragging rights. I also recognised the music from the trailer immediately - Bignic does some delightfully distinct distorted big beats, and did all the music for FutureGrind. You can find the soundtrack and others on his Bandcamp page here.
FutureGrind is out now on Steam and Itch for £15/€20/$20, and its official page is here.