#54 - Get To Work

Get To Work is a tongue-in-cheek game about climbing the corporate ladder.  But it's more metaphorical than literal, as you spend the game on your hands and knees, rollerblading your way up difficult obstacles (and falling back to the ground level) just for the slightest recognition in the workforce.

It's one of those climbing games, like Getting Over It with Bennett Foddy, or Only UP!, or A Difficult Game About Climbing, except you're on rollerblades instead of climbing with your own two hands.  This game just released two days ago, so it's very new.

I like the title screen of this game.  It's designed to look like a business magazine, while showing off the main character and your game options.  Your character reminds me of the political activist Charlie Kirk, with his tiny face on a large head.

I also love the article call-out for Sam Bankman-Fried.  In case you're not familiar, he was considered the poster boy for all things crypto, having founded FTX cryptocurrency exchange.  That is, until FTX went bankrupt and he was arrested and charged for fraud, conspiracy, and money laundering. As of this year, he's serving 25 years in prison and was forced to pay back $11 billion.

Get To Work opens in your bedroom, with you staring at a poster encouraging you to climb that corporate ladder.  So you set off, with rollerblades on your hands, feet, knees, and elbows.  There is no walking or standing in this game; you rollerblade everywhere.

You reach your first room of obstacles, with the goal being to show up for your first interview.  You may notice that there's a clock in the top left corner, giving you a subtle tracker for how long you struggle throughout this game.

A narrator explains the jist of this game for you, essentially claiming that NFTs were more far-fetched than a game about rollerblading up the corporate ladder.  If you can't read the narration subtitles at the bottom of this screenshot, click the image to see its full 4K resolution.

Hidden around each room are these spinning logos for The Grindset, a podcast about business.  They have short (usually funny) discussions about corporate life and what you need to know to succeed in today's work climate.  As if the climb wasn't hard enough, most of them are in hard-to-reach areas.  But there are three achievements for collecting these, so grab every one you can find!

Here's an excerpt of unprompted narration.  It sounds silly and preposterous, but is also real in America and kind of sad.  Two of my close friends are in this exact situation right now, having spent the past year job-hunting and still not having any luck being seriously considered.  And one of them has a Harvard degree!

I'm almost to the interview...

You finally get to your first interview, only to find that it's not going to be that easy.  We've gone so far metaphorical now, it's wrapping back around to literal!

You finally get an offer letter!

...Only to be rejected and fall all the way back to the start.

Thankfully, you have a family member who can hook you up with a warehouse job in the meantime.  So you set out again to climb a new corporate ladder.

The game starts to get really sassy at this point.  I got stuck in this room for about an hour, and the more I fell to the ground, the more the narrator had to say about it.

Eventually, the game gave me a GIVE UP button to press, for when I'm "feeling like this game is too much and it's time to give up."  They also started mentioning shoes a lot, claiming it would probably be in my best interest to buy a pair and just walk my way to the top instead.

I finally made it to my first pay raise! ...Only to learn it wasn't feasible at this time and instead I received a pizza party.  Goddamn, that's too real.  But at least there's a manager role that I can promote to, so I'm not done yet, right?  RIGHT?

I finally made it to the promotion to manager!  Woo!

Only to have a brick wall literally pop up in my face, proclaiming that a college degree is required.  Which I apparently don't have.

This was the first time my character seemed to be in real despair.  Normally if he fell, he'd immediately pop back up and be ready to go.  But after this one, he just lied there, unmoving.  I had to jiggle the controls to get him back up.

There was a hallway off to one side that led to an unpaid internship, the only option left for a warehouse worker with no degree.  Sigh.

After climbing this next room of obstacles and getting accepted for the unpaid internship, I finally had to call it a night.  This humor in this game was starting to get too real and painful.  And I spent an hour and a half just to get this far!  You will eventually work your way up to CEO before the game ends, so I still have a long way to go.

By the way, I couldn't resist making this:

Get Stick Bugged lol

#53 - LocoCycle

LocoCycle, despite its appearance, is not actually a racing game, but an action/adventure fighting game that happens to take place on the open road.

LocoCycle opens with a live action B-movie cinematic.  We get a few of these cinematic cutscenes throughout the game.  We see important military leaders from China, Russia, Africa, and America, along with a ton of other guests in elegant formal wear, gathering at a secret formal event in Nicaragua.  It's a gallery held by the arms dealer Big Arms, to show off two new motorcycles: the sentient combat bikes S.P.I.K.E. and I.R.I.S., with advanced AI and powerful weaponry.  The bikes will be auctioned off to the highest bidder.

Yes, that is James Gunn in the background.  He plays the host of this event, showing off the two bikes.  The girl in blue (Lisa Foiles) actually performed the AI voice for I.R.I.S., and S.P.I.K.E. was voiced by Robert Patrick, the guy who played the T-1000 in Terminator 2: Judgment Day.

A thunderstorm starts brewing and the party is moved indoors.  Some armed guards are asked to move the bikes to the garage, but while one steps away to take a call, I.R.I.S. is hit by lightning!

We're then introduced to I.R.I.S.' mechanic, Pablo, who is asked to repair her.  Her circuitry is fried and she needs to be fixed up before the auction begins.  Pablo only speaks Spanish throughout the entire game, which makes it impossible for him to communicate with I.R.I.S., whose database of 5,000 languages is now corrupted.  If you don't know Spanish, make sure you turn on subtitles!

While Pablo is fixing her up, I.R.I.S. scans the magazine he was reading, then watches a commercial on the nearby TV about a Freedom Rally being held at the fairgrounds in Scottsburg, Indiana.  She's inspired by the ad's tagline: "Live Free. Ride Alive."

She decides she needs to find this rally in Scottsburg, IN and she invites Pablo to tag along.  Problem is, Pablo's pant leg is caught on I.R.I.S.' rear wheel frame.  When she takes off, he finds himself dragged along!

The rest of the game is I.R.I.S. racing to find Scottsburg, IN while dragging Pablo on the pavement behind her.  That trip is over 3,000 miles long!  I hope Pablo is wearing some durable britches.

I.R.I.S. breaks out of the Big Arms facility and is quickly pursued by men in black suits and heavy firearms.

You'll quickly notice that I.R.I.S. drives on her own, and you only control her other functions. You can steer her back and forth, attack with front or rear wheels (Pablo himself usually being the rear-wheel attack), shoot unlimited rounds from her forward guns, and boost forward for a limited time.

Despite occasionally aiding I.R.I.S. in combat, Pablo insists that he's being dragged along against his will.  He begs for help from anyone who comes after them, but is mostly ignored as they do everything they can to take down I.R.I.S.

There are several types of enemies you'll encounter.  The armed men in black being the most prevalent, but there are also guys with jet packs, helicopters, and even rocket launchers.  I.R.I.S. can counter all their attacks with quick-time events, including throwing rockets back at their launcher.

S.P.I.K.E. himself will come for I.R.I.S., but she refuses to go home with him.  So he resolves to take her out and you get a boss fight with him.

When S.P.I.K.E. realizes that Pablo is a "powerful human ally" in I.R.I.S.' escape, he decides to get his own human companion.  He grabs the first lady he finds at a campground, who willingly goes along with him despite being dragged on her back for miles of gravel and pavement.

Oh, and I'm pretty sure I.R.I.S. is just holding onto Pablo; he's not actually stuck.  Because she can throw him like a ninja star to attack ranged enemies!  He always boomerangs back to her and ends up with his pant leg "stuck" on her again.

Because I.R.I.S. is technically malfunctioning, there are times when she might shut down completely and stop in the middle of the road.  Then Pablo has a limited amount of time to fix her up before a pursuing semi truck catches up and runs them both over.

It's a little tricky moving Pablo around until he finds problems to fix, but the various fixes themselves are relatively easy to complete.

This is an extremely campy and silly game, but very fun to play!  Combat is mostly button-mashing and swerving around obstacles on the road, with some quick-time events to either counter an attack or dodge an obstacle.  There are three skill trees to improve I.R.I.S. and Pablo's abilities, and the more stuff you unlock, the easier the game becomes.  The whole game is 5 levels with 3 missions per level, plus a final boss fight level.  You could probably beat the whole thing in a few hours of gameplay.

Here's a shot of S.P.I.K.E. eating a sweet corn and black raspberry buttermilk ice cream cone: