If there is one thing I can take away from my time playing Totally Reliable Delivery Service it’s this: If this is how deliveries are made, it would explain why my packages turn up half-destroyed and late.
Developed by We’re Five Games and published by TinyBuild, Totally Reliable Delivery Service is a physics-based, sandbox delivery game that is equal parts funny and frustrating, or frustratingly fun to be more specific. Its simple gameplay and objective can make for some lighthearted and fun moments, but it’s also one of the game’s biggest drawbacks.
The game will have players flying, driving, and crashing their way across a respectably sized map filled to the brim with possibilities for mayhem. All this while they attempt to promptly deliver packages while keeping damage to a minimum. It’s not exactly complicated, but that more than works in the Totally Reliable Delivery Service‘sfavour.
It’s quick and easy to understand, perfect for some dumb fun.
For those wanting to go for top scores and rewards, each delivery is marked with the classic gold, silver, and bronze ranking that’s affected by the speed and condition of each delivery. As you’d expect, the better the delivery, the better the reward, with most of the rewards being cosmetic options and money that let you freely customize your avatar or the (decent selection of) vehicles with all manner of strange hairstyles, clothing items, and paint jobs. This is made all the more entertaining given the simple visual design of the game, with most textures and models resembling a play-doh like substance that gives an almost childlike quality to the world and your character.
Up to four players can play via local or online co-op, a match made in heaven for my Nintendo Switch given the assessability of the game and its focus on co-op; Which is very clearly the way the game should be played. But, after a short amount of time, I found myself becoming bored with simply moving packages from one place to another, with little to no enjoyment despite some of the more challenging and ludicrous deliveries that involved landing a helicopter on a blimp or wrestling with a tiger in its cage just to name a few.
Although, the brief time that I got to play some co-op made it feel like a completely different game. Playing with others brings out what’s best about Totally Reliable Delivery Service, thanks to the sandbox nature of its map.
Whether you’re helping your fellow player make deliveries or just distracting and interrupting them, the copious amounts of chaos that can ensue from co-op gameplay alone make the game far more enjoyable; Add on top of that the heavy, janky feeling controls reminiscent of games like Octodad that make movements feel weighty and comical to make for some of the most frustratingly fun dives and tumbles I’ve had in a while as I’d try to tumble my way to the delivery point.
Put all that together and it’s easy to see how much more of the game’s fun simply comes from the unbridled mayhem that you do together, or against each other — almost resembling a group of children at playtime rather than a game.
But it’s this simplicity that does hold back Totally Reliable Delivery Service in some regards.
After a while, the gameplay loop of getting a delivery, travelling across the map and making the delivery can become old, and even messing around can become tedious after a while as you’ll find yourself not really accomplishing anything. That’s not to say that just exploring and playing in the sandbox world isn’t an enjoyable experience, but depending on your playstyle and preference it can grow tiresome.
I found it hard to keep playing after a few short hours, and couldn’t help but feel like there are some missed opportunities to really go all-in on the more comedic, co-op centric aspects of the game. Mixing up objectives with some variables and variety, or some different game modes or mini-games could offer more options that could help keep the game feeling fresh for longer.
But regardless of some of these minor faults, Totally Reliable Delivery Service does offer up a light-hearted and fun sandbox world for you to play, even if its only for a short amount at a time. What it may lack in variety is made up for in the co-op experience that is the best and frankly only way to truly get the full experience, especially with friends.
Its may not be the best TinyBuild has published, but its certainly one that feels right at home on the Nintendo Switch.
Totally Reliable Delivery Service releases April 1st for PC, PS4, Xbox, Switch, IOS and Google Play. For more information, Visit the Developers Website or check out their Twitter.
