Powerhoof, the developer behind the 2D adventure game tool PowerQuest and titles like The Telwynium, Intergalactic Wizard Force, and The Inanimate Mr. Coatrack, has just released a devious new PC title that combines the parser-based problem-solving of classic Sierra-style text adventures with the twitch gameplay of a modern-day auto-runner.
Terminal City was made in a week as part of PowerJam3, and is described by its developer as, "What if you took 80s adventure games like Space Quest, crossed them with auto-runners like Canabalt, and threw in a dash of Another World?"
In the game, you play as a street kid named V-Loc who must escape the Syndicate corpos and rescue his friends, with the twist being that you can't control where the character moves on the screen, only the speed of the character and what they do when they arrive in a particular area. This inevitably means there's no ability to backtrack at any point and that if you should miss an important inventory item or interactable object, then you'll likely end up hitting an instant death later on and will have to start again from the very beginning.
On paper, this sounds like it could potentially get annoying quickly, but the game is filled with various humorous and creative Sierra-inspired death screens to keep things fresh and also incentivizes you to try again by including the distance you've managed to achieve at the top of the screen.
It's a game that rewards problem-solving, situational awareness, and speed, and best of all, is available now completely for free.
Feel your adventure gaming skills are up to the test? You can download the game now from itch.io.