Truth be told, I didn’t pay much attention to developer Excellent Rectangle’sTape to Tapeleading up to its Early Access release last year. Sure, a roguelike hockey game sounded unique, but one, I already hear about a ton of roguelike takes on all sorts of different genres and concepts as is, and two, I’m not much of an enthusiast when it comes to sports games, so even with more arcade-style gameplay, I just sort of glossed over it. But then, during this year’s Awesome Games Done Quick event,Tape to Tapewas on the schedule, which is finally what made me curious. I tuned in, saw it in action, suddenly got a glimpse of the kind of action and gameplay that made it special. And needless to say, I jumped at the chance to try it out for myself.
Hello Out There, We’re On The Air
Tape to Tapeis a game about a journey to create the greatest hockey team possible, initially starting with one or two superstars, with the rest of your team being benchwarmers. That is to say, some start out with good, well-rounded stats, and others…decidedly less so. Naturally, it’s up to you to beef them up as you travel along, heading along a roguelike map with different paths to take that lead to different events, shops, matches and more. Successful matches or encounters can allow you to improve the stats of different players through various equipment and skills that can increase their accuracy or have them chase the puck more when not in control, to name a couple of examples.
But of course, the real meat and potatoes is the classic ’90s-style arcade hockey gameplay that each match consists of. Having played more than a few games ofMutant League Hockeyback in the day,Tape to Tapequickly brought back fond memories. The controls are easy to learn and gameplay is nice and smooth, with every movement feeling like it has just the right amount of weight to it. The challenge level seems just right – even if I only got to see the first world =- and the addition of co-op is nice and fun as well, allowing friends to help you out if possible. Overall, it would be terrific hockey gameplay as is.
Review: NHL 24
The biggest changes to NHL 24 do occur where it matters the most: on the ice.
That said, as hinted at with the mention ofMutant League Hockeyback there, things aren’t completely normal here, and all the better for it. For one, there’s the ability to use special moves during matches, such as flinging a puck that rebounds at multiple enemy team heads and temporarily knocks them all out, or the ability to throw your hockey stick across the ground to trip folks up. There’s also a good chunk of humor to be mined from the journey of a hockey team being treated like an epic roguelike saga as well, and there’s a lot of cute dialogue on display as well. And of course, there’s the rival teams as well, which can get crazy with either their team names/logos, or the teams themselves, such as the first boss encountered, which was a whole team of referees (considering that bribing referees is apparently a possibility in this game, one wonders how awkward things could get there…).
Overall, the unique blend of old-school video game hockey, roguelike mechanics and a good sense of humor that I first saw on display at AGDQ was fully on display here, making for a terrific game to check out. Even just the actual hockey gameplay alone is well done, but the various twists the game takes allow for a good level of strategy on top.Tape on Tapeis available now in Early Access on Steam (with a publishing assist from Null Games), and I can’t wait to see just what the future of the game has in store.
