Published , by Charles Singletary Jr
Published , by Charles Singletary Jr
PAX South 2019 may be the relatively little of the bigger PAX events, oft-ignored by some developers and publishers, but others show up with new titles and keep the hype train fueled. Tiny Build hit the expo floor with three reveals, headlined by Totally Reliable Delivery Service and its ragdoll physics antics.
In TRDS (a tinyBuild booth staffer says the team does, indeed, pronounce it “turds”), players have to work together to deliver various items to specific locations. The catch is, it takes intense concentration and both hands to even use the game’s vehicles, so another player will have to hold the package.
In my hands-on demo, I played with a few randoms at PAX South and that resulted in absolutely no communication and teamwork. Since I wasn’t able to actually work on any deliveries (every player was pretty spread out across the map doing their own thing), I tried out a few of the vehicles and trampoline.
Vehicles are controlled via joysticks and, considering Totally Reliable Delivery Service is a ragdoll physics game, my experience was every bit as wacky as you’d expect it to be. The driving is responsive when I found a way to get into the right position, but I also ended up steering a golf cart with my ragdoll delivery worker hanging out of the driver side door and getting rocked by oncoming traffic.
Before wrapping up the demo, I decided to take a rocket as high as I could fly it. I made it well above the clouds and nearly into outer space before the vehicle exploded and came crashing back down to Earth. Considering the focus on delivering to land areas, I didn’t expect I’d be able to go that high. Such freedom could lead to some impressively wacky completely deliveries and the developers could also introduce some aerial targets for ragdoll teams to figure out. We’ll have to wait until Totally Reliable Delivery Service launches on July 15, 2019, to see how ridiculous things get.