TwinCop tests the strength of your friendships today
Left Brain, meet Right Brain. Now FIGHT!
TwinCop by Finite Reflection has one of those amazing game concepts I'm surprised hasn't been done before. In a generic '80s synthwave movie world, two cops have been exploded, and sewn back together into a single super-cop like some kind of bargain-bin RoboCop. Two players (local only) share control of this bisected bobby, twin-stick shooter style. That is, each player controls one arm and leg and must coordinate to defuse bombs, drive around town and survive bullet-time gunfights. It's gloriously daft and looks like a grand time. See the launch trailer below.
Communication seems to be the key to TwinCop, and by that I mean howling panicked orders to your partner in-between laughs. When moving around, your chosen direction is the average of what both players are inputting, so if one player wants to go left and one wants to go up, it'll split the difference. When both players are in sync and moving in the same direction, you'll gradually heal, so picking a route and sticking to it should help. Of course, the controls change when you get into a car, or are trying to share a pair of scissors to cut wires to defuse bombs. It's chaos, but controllable, just about.
While not an enormous game (the developers estimate three hours for one completion, one if you speedrun it), there looks to be a good bit of replay value. Part of this is in choice of character - each half of TwinCop's body can come from one of eight different cops with their own special powers, each pairing with a portmanteau name. While the game has no native online multiplayer, the developers do mention that game-streaming service Parsec works. You'll need a strong internet connection and low ping for it, but it should be playable if you don't have a pal and a spare gamepad to hand.
TwinCop is out now on Steam, Itch and Kartridge for £11.39/€12.49/$14.99. You can see Finite Reflection's other weird, experimental games on their Itch page here.