I discovered this wonderful racing game called “Tanuki Sunset”.
What I like most about it is the style and flavour. It’s full of Vapor Wave lo fi chillbeats Aesthetics, with a cool character added in.
What do you do? Well, you’re a raccoon (!) racing a longboard (!!) down an endless flowing downhill road (!!!). On the way down you can pick up treats, music tapes, achievement goals and even your lost “kit” (a baby raccoon, how cute!) which you can drop off after some time. All these things give you points in varying amounts and ultimately you’re trying to improve your high score. There is no end to the track, the game ends once you drop off the track (no bonuses at the end).
The interface is very clean, not crowded, perfect for an immersive experience.
You encounter different obstacles while riding towards the sunset. There are kickers for air time and spin points (be careful when you land!), cars and lorries to avoid, and sometimes the road gets narrower.
My favourite moment: Whenever you pick up a tape, the background music switches to a new track and the whole world gets basked in a magnificient glowing colour, just making it more vapor wavy (basically you cycle through three different tracks & colourings). Once I’ve reached the third tape (Bossa Nova, Orange Sunset) I usually avoid picking up new tapes.
The gameplay takes some practice. Those hairpin curves can be a bit hard to drift, and if you don’t completely align the landing you are in serious danger of wobbling out of control.
The developers really care about the visual details and you can see that the look and feel of the game was front and center during the development of the game. You can just enjoy being a raccoon rolling down a road, catching some sun rays and answering calls on your oldschool mobile phone and scoring some points. Why? It doesn’t matter. You’re a raccoon on your skateboard listening to bossa nova. You’ve already won at life.
The game runs in your Browser (Chrome). It also offers a neat photo mode, which came in really handy to create all these screenshots.
This game is still in “Alpha” mode, so it’s essentially a demo of a concept. The developers have stated that they’re working on a full version, to be released in Spring 2020, but since then there have been no more updates. Honestly this game is good enough. If I had a say though, I would improve the following things:
- Make the handling a bit less glitchy. Sometimes you spin out of control after a jump Phone Number Trace , and you don’t really know why.
- Have the track correspond to the Bonus Point assignments. Sometimes you have to wait for a long time until the track generates a kicker for you to get the “Air 360” achievement.
- More music & visual modes. Maybe even add a Moon-Set (Night mode)?
- How about banked/overhanging curves every once in a while for ultra smooth flowing?
- Loopings
If you want to play an immersive and relaxing game: Give Tanuki Sunset a try!
