I’ve been wanting to explore more indie game developers and try out more demos. After being followed by a developer working on a game, I decided to give their demo a try, which was how I got my hands on Obstacle Overdrive.

The game takes a fairly straightforward idea and runs with it rather well. It’s an obstacle course that you get across using a remote control car. The setting appears to be in some kind of playroom, as various tracks are laid out as a random assortment of items. You can’t just charge headfirst, as the items are arranged to sometimes need carefully executed turns. Others scattered on the tracks themselves cause you to fall over the edge if you hit them the wrong way.

I feel like they also have the right amount of difficulty here. Tracks are not straightforward and do require a bit of trial and error to get past. With that being said, it’s not so challenging that I’m getting frustrated in the process, which is an ideal place to be for a cozy title. It also helps that the controls are really nice. I don’t really have a detailed way to explain it, but I just never felt like I had any issues with the car. My skill, on the other hand….well I did fall a couple of times.

So while not a complex idea, it’s a really well-executed one. The cozy theme is in full force here. The setting looks inviting, you have a controller on the screen to simulate the remote control car feel, and the car even makes an RC car sound, which just adds to the comfy vibes.

Overall, this is a game that ideally brings forth the vibe it intends to. The aesthetics, difficulty, and smooth controls really make this an easy game to sit back and relax with when you need to. I’m thankful to the developers for following me because I played this on a day that was a bit stressful, and it was exactly what I needed to decompress.