When it comes to retro consoles and gadgets, I am not one that knows many of them! Nor do I understand the actual inner workings of various devices. With that said, when playing Retro Gadgets, a game all about creating, coding, and fixing a bunch of devices, I had a fantastic time.
The demo that I played at Devcom this year had a story mode and a sandbox mode. I think the sandbox mode is the main selling point on their currently released version of the game, however I dived into the story. You play as a person just starting out in the world of gadget creation and hacking. Your grandfather was a famous tinkerer and repairman in the strange, future society that the story takes place in, and you are expected to pick up his mantle.
Each day in Retro Gadgets starts off with you getting a package then checking your email on a pretty old-seeing computer system. Often, you will have quests from various people, who have gadgets that need fixing, painting, lights added to them, etc. They want this done quickly, so once the item is in front of you, you can plug it into your computer to see the inner workings and get to the task of welding and adding in components.
A lot of the time, that’s adding in motherboards or led lights and making sure everything fits in well and can be used. There is also an entire airbrush mode to the game, where you can find yourself further decorating and painting exactly what you want. This airbrush was mistakenly sent to you, but that doesn’t matter much as you aren’t sending it back!
Often the requirements are pretty easy to see and follow, leaning into the relaxing element of soldering little parts and placing pieces where they need to go. It’s a neat game that feels quite satisfying to do, especially when you send off the perfectly crafted device back to the strange internet person who seemed to only know your grandfather.
I enjoyed the story element of the game and did end up watching the developers play a bunch of sandbox mode, which has you building different devices and decorating them! A little frog retro console looked fantastic and was something I wish that I had in real life. So whether you’d like to create retro devices yourself or spend some time helping out strangers, Retro Gadgets is a fun game for those who know about the inner-workings of electronic devices and those who do not.
You can purchase Retro Gadgets in Early Access on Steam.
