Have you ever thought of a vehicular combat game, but have it turn-based? With a roguelike elements? Set in space?
The first question is answered easily if you’re a board game enthusiast, but the answer to all three questions can also be this new indie game by Spanish-Brazilian indie developer RetroReactor.
The game is called Rebels Of The Solar Speedway, and if you think the name goes hard, here’s the synopsis of the world state, as per from the press release, because it goes hard as it is:
As humanity conquered the solar system, it abandoned its soul. Earth suffocates under the oppressive glare of the Church of the Holy Circuit, a techno-religious regime enforcing control through fear and mass surveillance. Across the galaxy, three ruthless MegaCorps—Ares Defense, Helios Genera, and Ceres Sustenance—enslave the masses in a brutal second industrial age.
For years, the Outer Rim Independence Collective has waged a silent war to stop Earth’s dark fate, but shadows alone cannot ignite a revolution. To free humanity and rally the people, the fight must step directly into the light: the bloody, high-stakes Battle Races of the Solar Speedway. Secretly sponsored by the MegaCorps to keep the population distracted, this legendary arena is where the chains will finally shatter. By defeating corporate champions and bankrupting their masters, the rebellion will spark the ultimate galaxy-wide uprising.
The short version of that is: Rebels Of The Solar Speedway is a group of rebels from the outer rim of the solar system building a rebellion against the techno-religious regime reigns supreme by joining corporate-controlled death races, and win.
Rebels Of The Solar Speedway has you control a team or battle-racers, not just one driver. The turn-based combat is divided into an Action Phase and a Resolution Phase where the first phase, it’s all about making the right moves, positioning and setting up attacks while the latter will see all the moves and attacks play out.
Outside of the races, you’ll need to repair cars and replenish ammo. No word if you can end up in debt or bankrupt from insurmountable repairs and ammo costs ala older Armored Core games. But you have access to 30+ weapons, 90+ modules and options to improve and change those weapons.
Rebels Of The Solar Speedway instead makes use of the capitalism theme as part of the gameplay. Killing a champion of a corporation may send them to bankruptcy, but using weapons made by the corporation will send stock prices soaring. So you interaction on track will affect the economy, including the prices of items due to a corporation’s stock health.
Corpos might also invite you to do their dirty deed for rewards, at risk of the rebellion movement taking you out.
The roguelike aspect comes from what will be become available in each run. What cars and weapons are available, what enemy teams will be on racing, will change each run.
Rebels Of The Solar Speedway won’t exactly appeal to car and racing game fans, but its racing and car combat theming should get these folks interested to check out a turn-based combat game. If anything, Rebels Of The Solar Speedway will have more in common with the board game Thunder Road or even XCOM than it is Twisted Metal or Star Wars Galactic Racer (which is actually a racing game with roguelike elements if you can believe it).
Rebels Of The Solar Speedway will be out in 2027. A closed beta for the game will be starting soon. Any interested players can join the Discord server here for access.