Doodle Derby

My Saturday group has a rule: if a game makes someone audibly swear within the first ten minutes, it goes on the shortlist for next week. Doodle Derby earned its spot almost immediately, and not entirely for the wrong reasons. This is a 2D physics racing platformer built around a loop where you and up to three others place track pieces before each attempt, race through the chaos you collectively built, fail spectacularly, and then modify the track before going again. The whole cycle of building, racing, and rebuilding is genuinely clever, and when it clicks with the right group it is one of the more fun party setups I have found in indie racing. The track-building side deserves credit for being accessible. The editor is quick to learn, with over 40 placeable parts ranging from goo cannons and bouncing castles to explosive barrels, boxing gloves, flippers, and UFOs that yank your car skyward. The competitive tension is the real hook: in multiplayer, everyone builds cooperatively, but you want the track to be survivable for you and lethal for everyone else. That dynamic - half sabotage, half self-preservation - is closer to Worms than to any conventional racing game, and it produces the kind of unhinged moments that make for great group gaming. A separate Tank Game mode lets players battle in a modified arena, which adds a bit of variety beyond the main racing format. The controls are where the experience wobbles. Keyboard play is genuinely rough - a gamepad is basically mandatory, and even then the physics feel loose enough to create real frustration during the solo single-player campaign. The campaign uses a star-rating system for each level, and chasing three-star times turns from light fun into a test of patience fairly quickly. The flashing collision effects are also a legitimate concern: one prominent reviewer flagged the strobe-like bursts on impact as potentially problematic for photosensitive players, and there is no option to disable them. That is a hard limitation worth knowing before buying. Online matchmaking is essentially a ghost town at this point given the game's age and modest player base, so if you are hoping to find strangers to race against, you will likely be disappointed. Remote Play Together support does mean you can still get the multiplayer experience going with friends online without everyone needing a copy, which helps a lot in practice. For a solo buyer, the appeal is narrow. The campaign has some genuine charm and the three-star grind will hold certain players for a while, but the rough physics mean progress can feel arbitrary rather than earned. The hand-drawn art, which was partly created by the developer's children, gives the whole thing a scrappy, lo-fi character that suits the chaotic tone. The soundtrack cycles through a small pool of synthetic techno tracks that work fine for a session or two before becoming background noise. At its best, Doodle Derby is a legitimately funny local party game in the vein of Ultimate Chicken Horse, just with cars and looser rules. At its worst, it is a janky platformer with unresponsive controls and a dead online community. Buy it with two or three friends already confirmed for the couch, not as a solo pickup.

Riley · Scout Team

Sports & racing

Be the first to comment on Doodle Derby.