A physics-based deliveries game that delivers
Type: Singleplayer, Multiplayer
Genre: Casual, Physics
Developer: We’re Five Games
Publisher: tinyBuild
Release date: 1 Apr, 2020
Overview
Totally Reliable Delivery Service is a physics-based game where one or more players can take packages and deliver them to their destinations. Sound easy? Well, it sure isn’t: between totally natural dangers like logs rolling down streets and the fact that the physics-based controls make everything difficult, you’ll surely have an entertaining time delivering packages to impossible places.
Delivery points
Totally Reliable Delivery Service has a not as big as I would’ve wanted map divided in macro-areas. Between them, we can find a big urban area, a tropical island, a mountain… with each area having its own mission and vehicles. The game basically forces you to travel the map back and forth, so you’ll see all places in the first hour or two of the game, unless you only take very short, in-area, deliveries.
Deliveries themselves are pretty straightforward: you get a package, a drop-off point and an integrity score if you’re transporting fragile stuff or a timer if you’re transporting normal items. Then you deliver the package and start again. Rinse and repeat. The differences between them are the delivery vehicles you use and the dangers you can find in your way.
Delivery vehicles
One of the first things you’ll notice when playing Totally Reliable Delivery Service is the number of different vehicles it has, vehicles that obviously often have nothing to do with deliveries. You can thus choose to deliver packages using the boring van option or the hot air balloon one. The delivery point is on a tropical island? The game has you covered! Speedboat… no! Let’s use a caravel!
Really, the content, in this game, is made by the different driveable vehicles you can find around the map. Once you’ve driven every one of them you’ve pretty much seen all the game has to offer. Sure, there are a good number of different deliveries to do, some even quite complicated or in mind-blowing places, but after a while the game just becomes repetitive, even if you play with friends: there’s very little content for a solo player, the fun of Totally Reliable Delivery Service is all in the clumsiness of the controls and the funny moments that they cause.
Collateral activities
Totally Reliable Delivery Service, like similar games, is the perfect game to play as it wasn’t intended (or was it?) to be. You can race your friends using the vehicles you find around, jump around with speedboats using the ramps you find around the islands or even play a pseudo-rocket league match using the special cars you can find in the arena.
Verdict
Totally Reliable Delivery Service is more of a sandbox than a proper game: it has very little content and it relies on the players to fill that void by playing with friends and getting fun out of the crazy situations that often happen. There’s not much more to say about it, but counting on the very low price point the game currently has, it can’t help but recommend it.
