Indie Game Club Issue 2: Nightmare Kart

Welcome to the second meeting of SUPERJUMP's Indie Game Club, the monthly series where YOU can play along! This month we played LWMedia's Nightmare Kart, a racing game of eldritch horrors and breakneck speeds. If you want to catch up on the action you can play Nightmare Kart on Steam for free! Our mission will always be to spotlight independent game developers who self-publish their work and we hope you'll join us in appreciating underground art.

Next month, we will be playing How Fish is Made by Wrong Organ! The game is available for free on Steam and you can stay tuned to SUPERJUMP to see what the team thought of the narrative horror experience in June!

Anyways, welcome to the racer's dream, get ready to vanquish some prey.

Alexander B. Joy

Remember how, in the original Super Mario Kart on SNES, there was a mechanic wherein players had to collect coins scattered around the track to raise and maintain their top speed? Its superior sequel, Mario Kart 64, removed that feature, ostensibly because it wasn’t fun, and only introduced a layer of irritation that distracted from the thrill and strategy of racing. I think a similar principle informs why I ultimately bounced off Nightmare Kart.

Instead of coins, your top speed in Nightmare Kart is dictated by a blood/stamina meter. Wielding weapons to harm enemies or opposing racers fills the meter, while sustaining damage from their attacks lowers it. In the abstract, this makes sense as a means of emphasizing combat and underscoring Nightmare Kart’s violent horror themes. But in practice, I found it clunky. The game’s auto-aiming feature removes any need for sharpshooting skills, and the frequent enemy attacks are hard to dodge. Between regularly taking damage and constantly needing to fire at targets I wasn’t even aiming for, Nightmare Kart’s combat felt frustrating and arbitrary. On top of this, the game demands players do tricks off of ramps to build up energy for turbo boots, so races often devolve into awkward, slalom-like slogs, undercutting the sense of speed and grace that the best racing games attain. Taken in tandem, these design choices feel like a confused and chaotic mass of features rather than a cohesive, unified whole.

I should note that although its mechanics didn’t work for me, I nonetheless want to praise Nightmare Kart for attempting these experiments. They’re something new in a sea of formulaic gaming, after all, and they certainly set Nightmare Kart apart from other racing titles. Considering it nails the intended PSX/CRT aesthetic, and is generously offered for free on Steam and Itch, I’d call it a worthwhile game despite not enjoying it much. The devs at LWMedia should be lauded for crafting a unique digital artifact that clearly reflects the great deal of love they put into it.

Wallace Truesdale

Several thoughts raced through my mind as I survived the bloody tracks of Nightmare Kart. The gothic horror aesthetic and story drama are reminiscent of Bloodborne. The modes, sound, and general structure spark memories of Mario Kart throughout its multiple iterations. The fact that two such tonally different series both came to mind for this arcadey game, which was missing the polish and scale of either, made me laugh when I wasn’t focused on power breaking and doing 180 tricks off the ramps. But what made me know this game was clicking with me was when I thought of Scooby-Doo and the Reluctant Werewolf, a 1988 TV movie that saw Scooby, Shaggy, Scrappy, and Shaggy’s girlfriend Googie forced to participate in the annual Monster Road Rally. 

At the start, much like Scooby and racecar driver Shaggy, races in Nightmare Kart would jump from stupidly unfair to way in my favor, partially due to skill improvement but notably item luck as well. Similar to the incessantly hungry dog-man duo, I was spooked by the monsters and their sinister cutscenes but laughed as I watched them slam into gravestones or blow up when I shot them. I laughed my hardest when I saw one of the Matilda sisters riding a giant pig.

The twists, turns, and monsters littering the track felt like exploring the grounds of Castle Dracula in Transylvania. The experience is bumpy, often literally for some race tracks, but also because its shooting mechanic is a bit awkward and its sharp turns demand a quick learning of its drift mechanics. But I was ultimately down for this game’s weird swings. In keeping with the analogy, it had a red shirt Shaggy movie vibe: similar DNA to the usual shenanigans the Mystery Inc. crew and racing games are generally now known for, but distinct in the detours it takes. 

Also, as much as I like the Scooby-Doo comparison, two quick asides require breaking from it: 1) Nightmare Kart has nothing as abruptly funny as the terrible relationship between the Hunchbunch brothers and Dracula in Scooby-Doo and the Reluctant Werewolf, and 2) I’m a fan of Nightmare Kart’s campaign one-on-one battles. The hunting of Nicholas especially stood out. Trapping him was a bit annoying, but I liked having to use my brain in a way I wasn’t expecting. Watching him forgo a kart and run after you on foot is hilarious, and the looping chase when he’s almost dead also felt like a shot of adrenaline.

Hazare Renne-Glover

After sacrificing a total of 105 minutes, I beat LWMedia’s latest title, Nightmare Kart. At least, I think I did. After lapping AI opponents, slicing and dicing mobs to increase my speed, and chasing down bosses through convoluted mazes, I am drained, but satisfied.

In roughly two hours of trudging through the campaign, Nightmare Kart managed to take me on an emotional Souls-like rollercoaster. The game is frustratingly unbalanced, introduces too many mechanics too quickly, and the campaign pulls you through 3 different game modes without a breather. By the way, two of those game modes sport different rules with little indication, and one drops you into a 3 vs 1 balloon battle-style arena. The twist is that you can’t really fight back against your 3 attackers, who are relentless, and there is a random boar guarding the objective that you have to pick up and deliver. Did I mention there was an objective? That you have to deliver? Neither did Nightmare Kart.

When all was said and done, and I finally put an end to Nicholas’ incessant howling in that annoyingly perplexing library, I was able to sum up my experience in one word: Wow. The developers at LWMedia gave life to a high-maintenance Bloodborne/Mario Kart lovechild that succeeded in far fewer places than it failed, and yet, I didn’t hate it. In fact, I enjoyed most of my time accelerating down the gothic-horror tracks and drifting in place to make impossible turns. Even the combat was fun in its own unholy, auto-locking sort of way.

If you're looking for a refreshing respite from the unending wheel of AAA titles, Nintendo prices, and Bethesda's continuing refusal to develop Elder Scrolls 6, give Nightmare Kart a try. I can’t, no, I refuse to promise any amount of enjoyment and pride you may or may not receive. However, and I can’t stress that word enough; if you are brave, bold, or just downright bored, this game will have you running back to polished titles with glee or grief in no time. Besides, it’s free, so it might can’t hurt.

Nathan Kelly

Nightmare Kart is a roller coaster of a game. The highs include heart-pounding high-speed combat while the lows include punishing mechanics that require painfully restarting the race. Each time the lights counted down, instead of determination and excitement, I felt dread that the odds would see me at the back of a dog pile.

This game exists on its own as a reflection of two other, wildly different games and I really wished it had picked one direction and stuck with it. On one hand, it has the incredible and dynamic track design and item control of Mario Kart. On the other hand, it has the breakneck precision controls and speed of Twisted Metal. This adds up to a vehicular arena shooter with random weapon drops and a kart racer without the rails that allow cinematic jumps and slalom straightaways to flow comfortably.

The game is an absolute riot regardless. I would still rather play Mario Kart or Twisted Metal Black than return to Nightmare Kart. But after establishing an identity between the two that works, I would return to Nightmare Kart.

I’m willing to give a gothic horror bone to the developers in that the game is built off of the aesthetic and design of the From Software formula where the game is initially frustrating and takes a lot of time to master and understand. However the genre is limited, and Nightmare Kart in particular is too fresh and innovative to capture the minds of its most creative potential fans. Nightmare Kart could be a sensation if the onboarding experience showed its players that it is easy to learn but hard to master.

The aesthetic is something that I really enjoyed about the experience. Even though the field of view was fairly limited, everything popped and I could easily navigate each track. The grotesque figures based on their Bloodborne counterparts had me amazed at the dedication to the art style and source material. The developers' passion really shines through in the level design and art direction, and LWMedia will be a name I watch out for in the future as I hope they pursue further projects.