I Hate Running Backwards

I Hate Running Backwards is an infinite runner crossed with a top-down shoot-em-up, and the core conceit is exactly what the title promises. Your character sprints perpetually backward down a scrolling battlefield while enemies, obstacles, and bosses charge at you from the bottom of the screen. You face them head-on, which means every second is split between reading the incoming chaos and managing your position. It sounds like a gimmick, and in the first ten minutes it almost feels like one. Stick with it and the mechanical tension clicks into something genuinely satisfying. The appeal is in the weapon variety and the roguelite run structure. Characters pulled from the Devolver catalogue each bring a starting loadout and a passive ability that meaningfully changes how you play. Weapon drops scatter across each run, and the gap between getting a rocket launcher that clears screens and getting a pea-shooter that tickles elites is wide enough to make some runs feel predetermined. That randomness is the game's most honest flaw: when the drop pool goes cold, a run collapses with very little you can do about it. Co-op is present and genuinely improves the experience because a second player smooths out the RNG spikes and adds the kind of frantic shouting that this genre runs on. Visually, Binx Games leans into a scrappy, comic-book energy. Sprites are chunky, explosions read clearly, and the scrolling arenas have enough environmental variety to stay legible session after session. The soundtrack is loud, propulsive, and does its job of keeping your pulse elevated. It does not have the layered, atmospheric sound design I usually linger over in indie titles, and that is fine, because this game is not trying to be that. It is trying to be an arcade machine you shove a quarter into at 11pm. Where it stumbles beyond the RNG is in longevity. The mix of 74 percent positive reviews on Steam reflects a game that lands well in short bursts but fades when you push past the initial novelty. Unlocking characters and clearing the boss roster gives structure to the early hours, but the run-to-run variety starts to feel thin once you have seen the weapon pool a few times. If you have a co-op partner lined up, that ceiling lifts noticeably. Solo, the replayability question is real and worth asking before committing. For what it is, a tight, unpretentious arcade romp from a small developer backed by a publisher with good taste in chaos, it delivers on its premise without overstaying its welcome. It is not reaching for anything profound, and it knows that. Sometimes that self-awareness is exactly the right call.

Kai · Scout Team

Indie & narrative

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