Flying and taking screenshots at the same time is haaaaaard on an iPad.Tremulous Thoughts: DATA WING Aussie indie dev Dan Vogt delivers a clever 2D racer with an electronic heart and for free, to boot.
Tre L. Follow Sep 3, 2017 5 min read Free games on mobile platforms, like how free services are offered on most parts of the internet, arent ever really free. Right Theres always some catch to it in one way or another; you pay by looking at ads or buying into in-app purchases after youve played a bit and decide youd like more. Its how the business has kind of come to work in the years since gaming on our phones went from being a novelty to an everyday occurrence, from being a hobby to a billion-dollar industry. Right Thats how things just are, arent they Maybe thats why I cant get DATA WING, a racing game from the mind of Halfbrick co-founder turned indie maverick Dan Vogt, out of my head. Its a fun, interesting take on the genre that combines the art of puzzle solving in ones environment with the skill of blazing around two-dimensional tracks as fast as possible, with a story that punches above its weight in both characterization and emotional impact and a soundtrack full of hazy vaporwave jams. ![]() Theres no IAPs, no ads, no requests for you to buy anything else Vogt has been involved in whatsoever; the games content to just give you a link to the aforementioned soundtrack in Spotify playlist form, credits to the artists behind each song, and thanks to the people and tech that helped make the game happen. Saying so feels weird, but the fact that such a well-made title is a free product on mobile platforms feels like a bona fide rarity. In a gaming landscape where the best gratis experiences tend to be smaller PC indie titles relegated to the pages of the wonderful-yet-little-known Itch.io, DATA WING is an idea given complete form, and it ends up being a unique and cool experience as a result of that. Data Wing Soundtrack Software Made ForIn the game, you are cast as a Data Wing, a piece of software made for the purpose of transporting information across the memory of a cell phone. You work for MOTHER, an AI inside the phone with ambitions of becoming a human being and a master plan to do so. This narrative is given some additional context by providing bits of whats happening beyond the screen of the phone youre a tiny part of; over the course of the game, you can unlock garbled text messages and emails illustrating events in the life of your User. If you were a fan of Thomas Was Alone s juxtaposition of an electronically-minded storyline with a minimalist art style, DATA WING will feel like a bit of a homecoming, even though the two are very different in gameplay. Vogt meshes the humorous and the dramatic in a way that brings Mike Bithells witty debut to mind, and it feels just as natural here as it did for Thomas (though you may find yourself missing the brilliant narrative stylings of one Danny Wallace as a result). Speed I am speed. Ka-chiga. While the plot impresses, DATA WING is first and foremost a stylish racing game, and in that capacity it excels. Vogt has noted his inspiration from classic titles in the F-Zero and Wipeout series as his primary source for where the gameplay mechanics come from, and in many ways the game feels like a top-down rendition of those. Youll find yourself pulled into a trance as you try to master the art of pushing oneself off of the walls of each track, shaving every second you can off of your laps on the circuit and stopwatch levels. In its best moments, the games an exhilarating thrill thatll leave you wanting more. DATA WING makes a point of differentiating the kinds of levels youll be doing, too. Sometimes youre tasked with just reaching the exit of a level. Occasionally youve got to race other Data Wings to the finish line. ![]() Some of these work better than others; one level near the middle of the game that pits you against five other virtual players proved particularly frustrating, as did another where the gravity within the level was brought up without much in the way of walls to use to speed yourself up. Dealing with these is well worth the addiction youll get from the good levels, and I hope that Vogt returns to the game with more of them. Id pay for more in a heartbeat.) If youre anything like me, youll also find yourself digging the soundtrack. ![]() As someone who previously only had a cursory interest in the genre, the selection here helped open my taste up to a new realm of sick beats, and it drew me further into what was already a brilliant game.
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