Spooky Chase is a 2D platformer published by QUByter Interactive on Switch and developed by Burning Goat Studio. Released on October 23, 2020 on Steam; it has earned some solid positive reviews on the site and at only 700mb, it’s not going to eat up your hard drive either.
The twist of the game is that You, the player, creates your enemies’ movements. As Steam user SOAPHY wrote in their review, “Spooky Chase is a challenging 2D platformer where you are your own worst nightmare.”
Essentially, the game is all about Capture the Flag. You play as a child and your goal is to collect flags around the town while malevolent beings are around. Once you make your first move, you can’t stop moving. You can only swap your direction. Every time you get a flag, you will spawn an enemy. That enemy will then copy the movements you previously made. Get the gist? When SOAPHY says you are your own worst enemy, they meant it.
Controls
The game has relatively minor controls. When holding the Switch normally, Y indicates sprinting, B is for jumping and you use the joystick for moving around. That’s essentially it for this game. Which is great since it’s a platformer. What’s difficult is the obvious calamity that is you creating your enemy’s movements. Forcing you to think about your previous movements and really debate about how you want to approach grabbing the flags. Once you get every flag in a stage, you advance to the next stage.
Be sure to collect the balloons scattered throughout the game. They can help you unlock new stages and abilities to help you as you progress in the game.
Game Modes
The game features both single player and multiplayer. The multiplayer mode is a survival mode that requires the player to . The single player consists of the campaign and a mode called Endless Mode, where basically you keep going after flags until you get caught by your past selves. It should just be called Chaos Mode.
Multiplayer consists of local multiplayer where you and friends can play together and collect flags, but you must progress the campaign to unlock more stages. Trust me, you don’t want to play the same maps over and over again.
Graphics
The game has 43 costumes that require you to earn candies to earn. In total, you’ll need to earn 3,000 to finish unlocking all the costumes. The game is presented in an adorable 2bit format with a 2D style of side scrolling. I very much enjoyed the old-school Mario look to the game and can for the most part prefer the throwback style to many “newer” looking platformers.
Fun Factor
I thought this game would get boring really fast, but I love tough games. I love a game that makes me think of an efficient solution. That’s why I was so fond of RTS games growing up. Or games such as Sim City, etc. This game surprised me with its extreme difficulty.
Don’t let its cute graphics fool you, this game can get very tough down the line, but not without fun! The thrill of clearing every stage is extremely fun and I can’t say enough how much this game surprised me by keeping me hooked on its simple, but addicting gameplay.
Conclusion
I must say without a doubt that Spooky Chase, while a simple game, hooked me after the first couple of minutes and surprised me with its fun nature. It doesn’t try to be too advanced or answer some of life’s biggest questions, but it does offer a fun game for those days where you are bored with or without some friends. I highly recommend you download it and give yourself a good little thrill.
Disclaimer: A review key was provided
Screenshots taken from Nintendo.com