So, as a kid, I rode my bike everywhere. I rode places I shouldn’t have, because I lived in the middle of no where. Be it places that was probably private property, but no one was around and I was too young to really have a concept of “trespassing”. I rode my bike with my neighbour to the mall that was like, 25km away one-way…which is pretty far when you’re 10. I rode to school when we moved to the city, even through the winter. I live in an area now that isn’t very cyclist friendly…and well, it kinda sucks. This is all to say that Wheel Worlds demo gives me that feeling of getting around by bike in a way that feels at home to me.
That said, my bikes growing up were always cheap and such, and certainly didn’t have a ghost, and I never raced rival bike gangs for rep…so there is only so much my real world enthusiasm can take me here. That said, the worlds done in a lovely sorta cel-shaded, wind-waker but more brown and green rather than blue skies and seas. There is a subtle haptics to the controller as you ride and the sound of skidding on gravel just takes me back. There is a bit of story, how your supernatural bike needs to restore it’s missing legendary parts so you can shepherd souls to the moon after being ransacked as it slept, leaving it to find a rusted ole discarded bike and you, the nearest person around.
The demo takes you through racing on the initial island and finding a few upgrades for your rusted old junker and sets you up to go to the second island where it cuts to a trailer for the full game.
Wheel World has certainly left me waiting more, and, is planned to be out this Summer according to the demo, but only listed as 2025 on it’s Steam page. The game felt good to play and I’m terrible for waiting for so long, though I know it got a lot of big page coverage. It’s at least the game that kicked me out of my rut of not writing and working on my backlog of reviews from this Next Fest.