As with so many other gamers, local multiplayer had a significant role in my childhood. Laughs and screams arose in equal measure when my friends get together to duke it out over Super Smash Bros. or Mario Kart. In the ruthless arena of competitive couch gaming, you had to give it as much as you got it.
Local multiplayer has experienced a resurgence in popularity within the past few years, thanks in large part to indie developers. Titles like Crawl, Gang Beasts, and Ultimate Chicken Horse have proven that people still crave fun, local multiplayer. Treadnauts, the first game by Topstitch Games, blasts its way onto the scene this coming Friday, February 2nd, and promises chaotically competitive couch gaming.
This Ain’t Your Daddy’s Worms
If you ever wanted to indoctrinate your children with a sense of joy for armored warfare, Treadnauts is the perfect vehicle for that. With its colorfully vibrant visuals and playfully hectic soundtrack, Treadnauts encourages a great sense of fun in its players. Smooth jazzy beats underscore colorfully chaotic storms of mayhem as tanks blast each other (or themselves) to smitheroons.
The core concept behind Treadnauts echoes modern games like Towerfall Ascension and older ones like Pocket Tanks and Worms. Up to four players engage in quick rounds of tank warfare, moving around the arena to try and eliminate enemy drivers. Timing and predicting your shots are key to victory, as obstacles, enemies, and the environment itself create an ever-shifting battlefield that keeps you on your toes.
Where Treadnauts offers a unique gameplay experience is in its deceptively simple mechanics. The game’s tagline, “Tank to the skies!”, wonderfully showcases what makes this game stand out: its distinct sense of fun. Be prepared for an onslaught of tank-related puns and vehicular gymnastics, because the game has them both in spades.
A Game For Everyone
Just as Super Smash Bros. is a party game with surprising depth, Treadnauts also sports a hefty amount of movement and combat tech underneath its stylish hood. Wall-driving, rocket-jumping, and a host of other small mechanics allow players to maneuver around the battlefield with entertaining efficiency. However, the game truly shines with its highly customizable rules.
Treadnauts appeals to casual and competitive gamers alike. With its vast array of custom rulesets, players can modify the game to be as clean or janky as they like. Zero-gravity, massive bouncing bullets, and low-reload times may not exactly be fair, but they’re definitely fun.
Boasting over 40 different possible rules and tweaks to gameplay, Treadnauts caters to casual, competitive, and everything in-between. Topstitch Games has crafted a frantically fun game around a solid core of tight and responsive mechanics.
Polished With Passion
For a project that was assembled in a little over a year, Treadnauts has an impressive amount of polish. While it’s lacking in some much-needed features like bots, the core gameplay is rock solid.
Treadnauts releases in Early Access on Steam this Friday, February 2nd, and will feature online play and challenge maps in addition to the local multiplayer. If you can’t get together a group to play with, the devs are hard at work towards building a dedicated community of artillery rocket scientists.
One thing’s for sure: blasting the shell out of people doesn’t get old.
Treadnauts will release on PC on February 2nd and for the Switch this coming summer. Join the Treadnauts Discord, follow the game on Twitter and Facebook, or check out the Treadnauts subreddit. Be sure to watch the Early Access Trailer below to see the game in action!
