Neon Tail will have you rushing around an open world on roller skates, using its free-roam environments to do tricks, make deliveries, and savor in the freedom of your movements.
Yes, there’s a dimensional disaster that’s imminent. Yes, you’ve got deliveries you need to make in a hurry. It’s so easy to forget all of that as you hurtle around the world of Neon Tail. It’s a land of rails and ramps – of open pathways that seem to beg you to build up speed and take to the air. The colorful landscape is designed to encourage you to build up some momentum and then start leaping off of things, throwing yourself into tricks or just letting that sensations of speed take you away. It feels like a place to forget your troubles and just be one with your movements.
You can do quite a bit while you’re rushing around, too. Doing tricks is as simple as pressing the stick and a few buttons. You can do these from many different heights, and with the world built to guide you toward ramps, rails, and platforms, it feels natural to just move from path to path, slipping from trick to trick without thinking. Not that you aren’t considering what to do as you move, but it all just flows so comfortably as you go. Momentum works realistically in this game, so you may have some trouble at first, but one you get used to it, there’s this sense that you;re just feeling your way through things that is marvelous.
And again, there is technically a lot to do. You’ve got deliveries you can make for the townsfolk, and you can make money from those to alter your clothing and get new stuff. You can stop to take selfies in the game’s many striking vistas. You can work towards gaining new powers and overcoming the imminent threat that means to destroy your world. There’s much you can do, but it’s in letting your skates carry you where they may that Neon Tail truly dazzles.
Neon Tail captures an exhilaration in its movements that begs to be experienced and enjoyed, and I loved every moment spent with it at BitSummit 7 Spirits.
Neon Tail is currently in development, but in the meantime, you can download its demo from Itch.io, GameJolt, and the game’s site.
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