ranzware
Sometimes, you just gotta go fast; feel that virtual wind in your hair as you launch yourself at the speed of sound through an abstract playground. The Local—a (mostly) free multiplayer speedster sandbox from Aussie solo dev JINC—understands the joy of moving absurdly quick in bizarre, physics-defying ways, and pairs it with the constant, sphincter-clenching fear that one tiny mistake will reduce you to a greasy smear on a mountain-side. You should probably give it a try.
It’s a loving tribute to the wacky, kinda-sorta-busted movement systems of early FPS games. Back when you could inexplicably move faster by strafing and turning in the same direction in mid-air, defy friction by hopping across the ground, or slide effortlessly uphill across 70-degree inclines. Most of your going fast will be grinding on rails, Jet Set Radio-style, boosting on downhills, defying gravity the rest of the time and ramping through the air off every tempting ledge.
I found out the hard way that fall damage will kill you very easily unless you land on a bounce pad or rail. The faster you go, the easier it is to screw up, but going improbably fast is just such a joy that chaining grinds, jumps, hops and slides to maintain that speed is deeply compelling. That’d honestly be enough for me, but there’s a surprising amount of meat on The Local’s bones, including multiple modes, solo or online.
While there’s only one large-ish map (set in a weird cartoon sci-fi Australia), there’s checkpoint and target-shooting races (you have finger-guns) with the option to challenge your own or other player’s ghost replays. There’s full online multiplayer with players scrambling to reach locations before their rivals.
The main Orders mode is even more involved, sending you running high velocity gig economy delivery jobs, picking up packages from warehouses and yeeting them (and yourself) to their intended homes. And then you get to spend your earnings on upgrades or special resources that can be even more lucrative to deliver.
It’s weirdly stressful but fun, trying to manage all of these systems while avoiding getting splattered by gravity. Worse, the game gets angrier the longer you stay alive, initially shooting homing missiles at you from scattered emplacements around the map, and later sending hovertanks after you. Both can be shot, but that’s just one more thing to juggle. Needless to say, the online leaderboards are hotly contested.
It’s out now, and is mostly free, aside from the optional ‘supporter package’ adding one more mode (Inferno, an endurance checkpoint race) and some cosmetic customization options. The developer informed me that if the game does well, he’d like to add Steam Workshop support for sharing custom levels, but he’s waiting to see if there’s enough players to justify the extra work. Go give it a spin and let him know it’ll be worth it.
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Kurt Indovina
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