Tiny Teams has started, and this had to be my first pick. A retro rally racer that holds its events within parking garages, Parking Garage Rally Circuit does exactly what its name says. Developed by just one person, I’ve had the chance to give this a go thanks to the code sent to me by Yogscast Games as part of the Tiny Teams Festival. And simply put, I started off with a real strong game.

Parking Garage Rally Circuit wants to impress upon a person its retro, Saturn-styled visuals. As such, it gives a choice upon first starting it up on how the gameplay is presented. These include original hardware, which puts the game into a CRT-styled TV complete with the curving edges and scanlines, or the PC port which displays the game across the entire screen with no scanlines present.

Across my journey with the game, I’d elected for the PC port style, simply because I wanted as full a picture as possible. Later on, once I’d completed what was available, I jumped into the options menu to swap down to original hardware mode. And after a few races, I found I didn’t mind the smaller display. It felt just as natural a view as fully on screen. There’s also visual options to fully customise that display, so the scanlines can be active with a full screen.

For how the game plays, Parking Garage Rally Circuit features three classes and eight tracks. These tracks are all mostly based in parking garages around America. San Francisco, Chicago, and Seattle. Each parking garage has a different design to it, with some even employing sections away from that parking garage for a bit more variety.

Controls are easy enough to understand, with the most important of those being the drift button. It is this drift that is the core of gaining speed. Whether one can maintain it is a different matter. Simply drift into a corner and await the sparks. The second tier of sparks will provide a larger boost, so let go and fly away. Drifting with sparks again while in a boost will increase the speed of it and its length. Failing to do so will have that speed fading away fast.

When it comes to the racing, this is more time trial than true racing. Gold, silver, and bronze times are waiting to be beaten, with their ghosts showing the moves they took to gain that time. Once one is beaten, its ghost will no longer appear. Once all are beaten, the game will download the ghosts of other players to provide some competition while on track. With the bronze time beaten, the next race is unlocked. Silver time beaten unlocks endurance mode for that track.

Endurance mode is a different sort of time trial. Where in races, the checkpoints are there to keep you on track, with endurance they also provide extra time. The goal of endurance mode is to keep going around these tracks as fast as possible to complete as many laps as possible. Mistakes feel harsher in this mode, as the time provided by each checkpoint is only small.

Beat the bronze on all tracks in race mode and the next class is unlocked. The light class is the slowest, but as the name suggests, is also the lightest. There’s a bounce to it not present with other classes. Heavy and ultra both increase the speed and weight of the vehicles, along with the power of those boosts. All classes can do well on all tracks, but there are a few parts where mastery of a class will get you through them quickly.

Touching on those tracks again, another way they’re made unique is the events that happen with some of them. Such as falling rocks on the Mount Rushmore track, or snow on the Minnesota Mega Mall track. A favourite of mine has to be the New Orleans Stadium, which is lit up with flood lights on the first lap. Those get taken out by a lightning strike, so the second lap is mostly in darkness.

The music of Parking Garage Rally Circuit is nice, with a good range of instruments providing some lovely themes. There are two vocal themes included. One of those is on the third track, with the other being the last. That last theme really goes for an epic vibe, with guitar, drums, and horns all coming together for a blast of that victorious feel on the hardest of all the tracks. Liberty Island. Which is a track that barely features a parking garage in its route.

There’s a lot to love about Parking Garage Rally Circuit. Good, varied tracks. A main mode that call to those who love the chase of the fastest time, and a secondary mode that answers the same call in a different way. Chunky retro visuals that look straight out of the early 3D era. This is one I easily would recommend upon release.

The Tiny Teams Festival is a celebration of games developed by small teams. This year running from 8-15/August, the festival once again is highlighting games both new and old, and even those yet to release. Check it out on Steam, and find yourself a great game from a tiny team.

Images Taken From:
Parking Garage Rally Circuit | Steam