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Hugh Likes Video Games: Tiny Terry’s Turbo Trip

April 4, 2025

hughjodonnell Hugh Likes Video Games, Review , , , , Leave a comment

Tiny Terry’s Turbo Trip

Published by Super Rare Originals

Developed by Snekflat

Played on Nintendo Switch

The Skinny: A weird little sandbox game about driving to space.

Tiny Terry’s Turbo Trip is a truly weird but highly enjoyable sandbox game about driving to space. Terry, a child living in the entirely law-free city of Spranklewater, wants to drive to space. To accomplish his goal, he’s gotten a job as a taxi driver, with a tiny car, and which he absolutely will not do. You will, at no point in this game, give anyone a ride anywhere. What you will do is collect a lot of junk and money to upgrade your car, complete quests, and interact with the charming and bizarre town and its citizens before making your fateful trip.
Tiny Terry isn’t a long game, perhaps 6-8 hours if you try and do everything, and a slim 2-3 if you just focus on accomplishing the main quest. Terry can’t be injured and there is no lose condition, although he’ll lose money if he runs into a cactus or otherwise comes to harm. This is a very casual and kid-friendly game where you explore the town, play mini-games, dig up random piles of dirt, and trade in the junk you find to upgrade your car to one day drive all the way up the side of the town’s tallest building and eventually slip the surly bonds of gravity.
The game itself isn’t very challenging, but the hook lays in its charm. The graphics have a blocky, Gamecube-like quality to them, and the little town is packed full of quirky characters and hidden secrets. You can play soccer with the kids you’re supposed to be going to summer school with, collect bugs to help a beachside snack bar stay in business, and commit Grand Theft Auto and other crimes. The humor in the game feels like it’s a draw for the pre-teen crowd, with weird characters, eating bugs, and a guy so sunburned he catches on fire. There’s a lot packed into this tiny game, and every minute is a delight.
While it’s a bit too slight to be truly great, Tiny Terry’s Turbo Trip is a little indie gem that will get you through a relaxing weekend or a long plane ride. It was previously available from Steam and is now on consoles. It’s well worth checking out!

Hugh Likes Video Games: 2020 Top 5

December 30, 2020

hughjodonnell Hugh Likes Video Games, Review , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Hello, readers! With not much else to do this year, 2020 was definitely a year for gaming. And gaming got a lot of attention this year, from the glossy spectacle of Final Fantasy VII Remake to the glitchy mess of Cyberpunk 2077. I tend towards a more indie bent in my gaming, but here are my top five games that caught my eye this year, as usual, in alphabetical order.

Animal Crossing: New Horizons

Animal Crossing: New Horizons
Nintendo
Played on Nintendo Switch

Let’s start with the biggest truth of the past year. 2020 was a garbage fire of a year, and in a year where we couldn’t just go and visit our friends, games became virtual spaces to meet up and visit. And for me, that mostly happened in Animal Crossing New Horizons. There’s not much that I would call serendipity this year, but Animal Crossing dropping in mid-March, just as everything shut down became a haven. A game about building refuge became a port in the storm for millions, me included. I wasn’t a fan of AC before this, and I doubt I would’ve picked up the game otherwise, but it allowed some peace and comfort in my life, as well as the ability to visit friends’ islands when I couldn’t visit their homes. I have mostly dropped off, prompting my villagers to complain about how they’ve missed me every time I pop back in, but ti was a needed balm for a few months.

Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout

Fall Guys
Mediatronic
Played on PS4

Fall Guys made the obvious leap of combining great ideas into one package better than the sum of its parts: Online Battle Royale Gaming and Obstacle Course Game Shows. The alchemy of cartoonish costumes and padded foam rolling logs works up to an oasis of calm and joy, even as I get knocked out one more time.

Hades

Hades
Supergiant Games
Played on Nintendo Switch

Hades is one hell of a game. Loaded with challenging gameplay, intricate systems, and a compelling story full of rich characters, Supergiant has created a masterpiece of the Rogue-like genre. While games like Dead Cells and Rogue Legacy had flirted with the idea of narrative in a Rogue structure, Hades doubles down and commits to telling a story that not merely progresses between runs, but relies on the life-die-repeat structure as a meaningful and necessary component. The result is a satisfying gameplay loop that makes even a bad run feel meaningful as players claw their way out of The Underworld, one room at a time.

Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity

Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity
Omega Force
Played on Nintendo Switch

A prequel to The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, the game is set during the Calamity one-hundred years before that game opens. While that game featured cutscenes that revealed glimpses of that conflict, this game shines by letting players fight out the epic war. Using Dynasty Warriors combat is a stroke fo genius, as that series lends an epic grandeur to the conflict, and we can see how mighty Link and the Champions really were. The game also lets players drive the Divine Beasts, essentially ancient elemental giant robots, for some even more epic destruction.The result is an engaging mix of fan service and mythic tragedy (plus some time travel nonsense) that makes this title stand out from others in the -Warriors series.

Merchant of the Skies

Merchant of the Skies
Coldwind Games
Played on Nintendo Switch

A delightful little indie game that didn’t see enough love this year, Merchant of the Skies is a steampunk airship trading game that sees you buying low and selling high across an archipelago of floating islands. Along the way, you upgrade your ship, set up facilities to harvest and refine goods from raw materials, set up a fleet to deliver them, and discover the region’s hidden secrets. This was a perfectly chill game with a lovely pixel art style. There is no combat to worry about, and as long as you can keep your ship powered, (or pay for a tow to a refueling station) the game keeps going. This friendly management sim hooked me pretty quickly, and had me playing for one more run to clear that next upgrade or uncover the next island. While the game did tend to want to autosave a bit too often for my taste, which left me cooling my heels at a loading screen, It was the perfect game to relax with in a stressful year.