Apocalypse Run!, now in early access on Steam, is a new rogue-like strategy game created by Neurowocky Games. Players will be able to make a party of four characters who are held on a layover at the Atlanta airport. As they leave, they find the world in an apocalyptic state after meeting with Motorlord Dysentery, Lord of the Wasteland. After a brief exchange of words, which is mainly Motorlord stating, “I am going to kill you,” the party piles into a car and starts driving away. There is a lot of silly humour throughout the game, bound to get a few good laughs out of you.

The objective, at first, is to slow down Motorlord and prevent him from catching up to you as you travel across America. From the car, you can pick from a variety of locations to travel to, triggering random encounters such as punks trying to rob you, aliens trying to probe you, or just casually stopping at a town and watching someone being judged for a crime they may or may not have committed. Players can perform skill checks, played out as if it were a game of Poker.

You’re shown what you must beat before being given a hand of random cards, and if your random hand can beat the challenge, you win, but the harder the task, the higher the challenge. Winning could result in avoiding an ambush, jumping over broken bridges, or successfully haggling or bribing the extensive variety of characters you come across in your travels.

As you progress, you will be able to buy and repair the vehicles you find on the adventure, starting a convoy of your own and increasing the defence and attack output for road rage fights. Combat is done on the open road using turns and action points, and the best way I can describe it is that it’s kind of like X-Com meets Mad Max. Each vehicle has a stat breakdown, including how many actions it can use, how much storage it has for items you can come across, and how many passengers it can hold.

Mini-games will quiz your knowledge of America, like asking you where Mississippi is, and you’ll need to point it out on a map within a time limit, but if you are like me, not American and have zero idea where these states are, don’t worry. When the timer is getting low, you have the option to cheat.

While the game is not visually amazing, it’s not intended to be the main highlight. 8-bit pixel-like voxel designs make up the world and blocky enemy and character designs, though they can feel very copy-and-paste.

They are, however, nicely detailed, so you do know what the various items and set pieces are meant to represent, and you can customise your crew as you collect new items and equipment. Combat takes place along the various roads you travel, displaying a static grid as the copy-and-paste scenery passes, and while they are simple, the combat animations are fun to watch.

Cutscenes take place in a static location, with very minimal animation and feeling somewhat under-populated, and when you’re travelling from point A to point B, it displays a simple map of America as your vehicle moves along the path. I am glad they kept it simple though. It helps to keep the focus on the important things – the humour and gameplay.

Music during the majority of gameplay is very smooth and jazz-like, while drum-heavy music takes over for the combat segments. Combat is populated by simple engine sounds as you move in combat, shattering glass as a Molotov impacts its target, or metal falling onto the road as you drop a bag of spikes in front of an enemy. Dialogue is delivered in a speech bubble above the talking characters’ head, with keyboard clicks sounding off as the letters appear, but I would have really liked for the important characters to be voiced. I think it would have really driven home some of the punch lines.

Apocalypse Run! is a very fun rogue-like game with great humour and characters to meet as you play. I am glad I got to review it – I had an absolute blast, even without much knowledge of American states. Available as early access via Steam, the combat system is easy to learn, and gameplay offers some great replay options, so I’d certainly say it’s worth picking up and trying out, and I look forward to seeing what may be added or updated as it comes out of early access.

Written by: Shane Walsh