Switchcars is an incredibly fast-paced rogue-lite that, while simple on the surface, is full of incredible depth and detail. Easy to pick up but brutally hard to master, Switchcars is the kind of game that digs its hooks in and doesn’t let go.

Altfuture brings us Switchcars, a game that left early access in 2021. It is a time-traveling, car-jacking roguelike where you’re constantly pursued by giant alien worms armed with nothing but a grappling hook. If you didn’t get it from that last sentence, this game is off the rails.

It starts simple. You have a grappling hook that you can use to grab onto objects and gain speed. You can also steal cars to travel faster. Your goal is to run to the right, travelling to different time periods where you can obtain different vehicles, and escape the giant aliens that are trying to stop you.

What starts as a straightforward escape mission quickly evolves into a chaotic speedrun of time-traveling vehicle mayhem. Each run begins with your escape through time, scavenging vehicles and upgrades to outpace the alien menace. The further you go, the more chaotic it becomes with each time period reshuffling the obstacles in your way.

There are several different kinds of vehicle, each with their own mechanics and ways of driving – bikes are easily destroyed, cars guzzle up fuel, planes can fly and have to avoid storms, boats can ride in water, and even animals like zebras and elephants. The range is ridiculous in the best way. The sheer variety in vehicles and vehicle types is more than impressive.

Most vehicles you will find initially will use fuel, but some of the more futuristic vehicles are electric and need power to run. There are also trains that need rails to drive along. The efficiency of vehicles is affected by what lane they are driving along. The screen is divided into ten lanes, with the top three “lanes” being the sky full of clouds. Only airborne vehicles can enter these lanes.

The other lanes can range from tarmac, to mud roads, train tracks, canals, swamps, forests – the terrain just keeps changing. The types of lanes available are influenced by the time period you are in and the particular environment. You could even end up in space, where you will float along, relying on your grappling hook or managing to grab a spaceship to continue moving.

Each stage has one or more environments you’ll have to travel through, and if you move quickly these can change rapidly. There is a timer on each stage, and when it runs out you will be pursued by one or more of the giant slug aliens that are trying to stop you. They will destroy vehicles you ride, and try to kill you, forcing you to use everything you’ve learned so far to survive.

You can mitigate the threat with upgrades that can be collected along the way. These can be special items that heal or protect, like the helmet, or they can be upgrades to your car – solar panels to power electric vehicles, skis to allow vehicles to travel along snow, or weapons that can be used to destroy things in your path.

If it sounds complicated, it is. But playing the game doesn’t feel that way. You have very simple controls and fast paced action that you will learn to react to quickly. Every run is different, ranging from dying right away because you forget to release your grapple and fly straight into a rock, to flying through the air while aliens leap at you, to jumping from track to track to avoid oncoming trains. Some or all of these things and more could happen to you in each run.

As an indie game it uses pixel art style graphics. They have great detail, and you can recognise vehicle types just through their silhouettes, something that really helps with the fast-paced gameplay, as do the richly detailed lanes that blend in with each other well enough that they seem like cleverly designed levels.

While this game can be a lot of fun for people who like a challenge, the repetition might feel like a grind for others, especially after several deaths. It takes a while to master this game. I’ve yet to make it past stage 8 myself, usually because I’m overwhelmed by multiple aliens as any vehicles I try to grab speed by.

But for players who like challenges and chaotic gameplay, this is a game for you. Whether you’re zipping through clouds in a flying car or narrowly escaping a swamp in a stolen tractor, Switchcars delivers heart-pounding chaos in every run. It’s wild, weird, and worth strapping in for.