Tape to Tape

I came to Tape to Tape fully expecting a gimmick. Roguelite hockey sounds like a pitch meeting that should have been killed before the PowerPoint was finished, and yet here I am having run the three-act campaign more times than I want to admit. The core is arcade hockey that sits somewhere between NHL 94 and the feverish chaos of NFL Blitz: passing, body checks, one-timers, dynamic puck physics that bounce off sticks and faces in ways that feel both organic and slightly unhinged. Controls are tight and readable. You move, pass, shoot, and check, and the depth creeps up on you. Lob passes, angle-dependent rebounds, and the ever-present risk of getting lined up by a defender if you hold the puck too long - these are the touches that separate it from a pure party game. The roguelite layer works by placing a branching map between matches across three acts. Before each run you draft a superstar, pick an ability for your captain Angus McShaggy, and grab an artefact - passive items like Rigged Faceoff (guaranteed faceoff wins) or Greasy Stick (opponents fumble puck on slapshots) that can flip entire game plans. Mid-campaign nodes offer training sessions, special challenge matches, random events, and the occasional referee bribe. Lose enough and you head back to the Blademaster, the between-run hub where earned currency (rubber) unlocks new superstars and abilities that expand the pool for future runs. Meta-progression is present and functional, though the community has flagged that the Campaign 2.0 overhaul still in beta testing is shaking things up - the unlock system is being rebuilt and the developer has been transparent about what is and is not final. Balance is the roughest edge right now. Body checking has a sluggish feel on collision - your skater momentarily stalls rather than powering through contact, which causes maddening whiffs on clean hits. There is a reported mid-campaign difficulty spike around Act 2 that has frustrated players who get there on sub-optimal builds. The goalie is functionally solid, with organic save reactions to deflections and rebounds, but goalies sit outside the skill and upgrade system entirely, which feels like a missed opportunity given how much character the rest of the roster has. No native online multiplayer is a real sting for a game this well-suited to competitive play; you are working through Steam Remote Play Together or third-party tools like Parsec if you want to play with remote friends, which adds friction. That said, the co-op campaign is genuinely funny and the local Play Now mode scales up to a crowd. The art direction - hand-drawn 2D sprites against a 3D rink - is distinctive and immediately readable, which matters more than people give it credit for. Sound design punches above the budget: organ hits on goals, metal guitar stingers, ice spray audio that actually sounds like ice spray. The developer is a three-person Quebec studio, responsive on Discord, and sitting on a 91 percent positive Steam rating across nearly three thousand reviews. That number reflects a dev team that patches, listens, and shows up.

Fred · Scout Team

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