Voxel Runner

“Foul!” cried the gaming community.  “Someone made an off-brand, generic version of Bit.Trip 2 and released it right before Bit.Trip 2 came out.  A pox on their house!”  You see the same venom directed towards developers of Minecraft clones, or guys like Milkstone when they release cheap XBLIG clones of popular hits like Slender or Binding of Isaac.  The weird thing is, the gaming community seems to treat this phenomenon like it’s exclusive to them.  Um, The Asylum anyone?  Mock if you will, but they’ve made over fifty movies and never once lost money on a production.  They’ve proven that, if profitability is all you desire, clones made without the slightest tinge of shame are the surest fire bet to get there.

Yes.

Voxel Runner sounds like it would be The Asylum’s port of a video game, does it not?  None of that coy “Sushi Castle” type of shit like Milkstone does.  “Voxel Runner!  Done!”  The funny thing is, everyone assumed that the game would be shit, myself included.  Timely release.  Blatant clone.  How could it be good?  Surprise, it is good.  Well, good seems maybe too generous.  How does decent sound?  I’ll go with decent.

Actually, Voxel Runner felt more like The Impossible Game, at least to me.  Maybe it was the art style, the pace, the spikes, or the constant deaths.  While the game offers more complex maneuvers (swiped liberally from Bit.Trip Runner) than simply jumping, it just felt like a memory-tester where you have a minimal chance of success on your first run through.  However, I did beat level 22 on my first attempt.  That was the only such level I was able to do that, but it felt fantastic.  It doesn’t matter if I failed 531 other times.  For a few seconds, I was an invincible destroyer of games.

Yes, because “ducking” is one of the most notoriously difficult to master moves in game history. It makes Zangief’s spinning piledriver look like child’s play.

This is a weird one to write-up.  Everything about Voxel Runner is decent.  Not great.  Not memorable.  I played this three days ago and I barely remember any critiques I had.  It’s possible I didn’t have any.  Well, there was one: the controls are slightly unresponsive at times, which resulted in about 10% of my total failures.  Otherwise, there’s really not a lot to cover here.  Voxel Runner is a shameless rip-off of a popular franchise, but it doesn’t suck.  If that’s all the developer was trying for, congratulations Captain Ambitious.  Take a seat in the dollar store hall of fame, next to a bin of movies starring Lorenzo Lamas and a can of expired off-brand chicken noodle soup.

Voxel Runner was developed by Dizzy Pixels Ltd.

80 Microsoft Points look forward to future productions from Dizzy Pixels, such as Super Italian Brothers, Sonny the Hedgehog, and Street Brawler II in the making of this review. 

Voxel Runner is Chick Approved.. don’t look at me like that, it doesn’t suck, I swear.. and is ranked on the Indie Gamer Chick Leaderboard.  Seriously, stop looking at me.

Voxel Runner is also available for Desura for $2.99.  This version is unverified by Indie Gamer Chick.