Space Raft (Nintendo Switch Review)

Space Raft
Platform: Nintendo Switch, Nintendo Entertainment System
Released August 15, 2024
Designed by Jordan Davis
Published by Nami Tentou
Point of Sale: Nintendo Switch, NES
$9.99 wore a Space Life Preserver in the making of this review.

I feel like Alice in Wonderland here, and I don’t mean the Digital Eclipse Game Boy Color game that was published by Nintendo. As in “I’m in a strange place where nothing makes sense and everything is over my head.”

In the interest of full disclosure, I’m friends with Safe Raft designer Jordan Davis and programmer Dale Coop. That doesn’t really help either of us in Space Raft’s case. A game that promises, quote, “recognizable people and places from the Milwaukee independent music scene, including DMR alumni!” I know of Milwaukee, but I honestly have no clue how big its music scene is, and so I have no idea how much inside baseball is being played here. I’m sure there’s a lot of gags that are destined to sail over my head and probably the heads of 99% of the world’s population. But, this isn’t a music game. It probably should be. I know I just said that about the Blues Brothers and in retrospect I should have said it when I reviewed the coin-op based on the band Journey. But, for what it’s worth, this is the best “should have been a music game but isn’t” title I’ve done at IGC. Space Raft is part auto-scrolling shooter (in the form of scenes with the band’s SUV) and part maze chase played without fixed movement. And apparently all the chip tunes are by the band. They’re decent enough.

I could have done without the van segments.

I should point out that if you buy the Nintendo Switch version, you’re getting two very different versions of the game in one. There’s a special arcade cabinet that was created specifically for a legendary arcade, the very famous X-Ray Arcade. I got a giggle because they’re located in a place called Cudahy, Wisconsin. There’s only one other Cudahy in the United States and it’s right here in California as part of the Greater Los Angeles area. The two cities are named after different brothers, too. Small world! Anyway, you get that game too in this package. The games play out quite a bit different, as well. In the NES version, now called “Space Raft Deluxe”, you must collect every chicken sandwich in each stage, and then the game switches genres entirely with a more open-world type of search for missing car keys and roulette tables. The arcade game is only single-screen-at-a-time collecting sessions where you can skip straight to the exit without collecting everything. The catch there is your health is based on the chicken sandwiches you collect and not normal hit points. The NES version has fixed hit points and scrolling through screens. Both games have levels that start with driving segments too, but they’re functionally side-scrolling shmups with the occasional ramp to go off. The bosses of these parts are fine, but overall these go a little too long for my taste and are a bit samey. They’re always scrolling right, too. It’d been neat if each of the driving segments had a different direction you were going. Something to break up the repetitiveness.

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The collecting parts are the highlight of the arcade game, sorta. Sigh, this is where it gets frustrating to review a game like this. I think that a lot of the segments are supposed to be wink-wink nods to famous Wisconsin area hangouts and local celebrities, so it’s okay if the gameplay isn’t the greatest. Well, if you’re from Milwaukee, which I’m not, and there’s no references to Giannis Antetokounmpo or the Bronze Fonz, which means this game excludes everything I know about that city. Oh, and Red Letter Media, but they don’t show up either. What is here is a fairly basic arcade scoop-em-up where you have to collect all the items. There’s usually one antagonist on the screen who spits fireballs at you as you do this, along with what I think are birds. You can switch between any of the four band members on the fly, and here’s where things do get unique: each of the four members has unique movement speed and a unique weapon. But, I only found two useful. The red one can throw bowling balls the full length of the screen, while the blue one only throws a close-range punch, but his attacks are instakills and he has the most accurate play control. Everyone else moves too loosely for my taste, including the bowling ball guy. The other two guys drop bombs and spit fire that I found ineffective, at least at first.

The arcade game. You can tell because it says credits up in the top corner.

The movement can be so touchy that there were multiple times where I walked into the stage exit when I didn’t intend to. The arcade game is short and fine for what it is. It’s not amazing. It’s okay. It’s rough, though. None of the movement is “fixed” and it’s inevitable you’ll get hung-up when attempting to turn corners or walk through gaps that are a single character length. Even the computer AI seems to have problems with it for the enemies. None of the baddies had anything resembling patterns that I could make out. This feels a lot like a prototype that has placeholder algorithms for most NPC movement. I couldn’t decide if my #1 “want” for this game was more elegant enemy attack patterns or better movement parameters, which is probably not the best sign, since those two things are really important to games like this. I’ll settle on “I wish movement was better.” Actually, I kind of wish this moved more like something like, say, The Adventures of Lolo where you move a half-space at a time. But, for all of its faults, I had fun with this. If we’re splitting the two games included apart, I’d give the coin-op a very mild YES! because it’s not boring and I feel there’s just enough intense chase moments to make this worth a play.

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Initially, I liked the coin-op more. I even quit the NES game a little too early to skip over to it, and I’m happy I did. If you end up picking up Space Raft, play the arcade game first, then play the main Space Raft Deluxe game (technically they’re both NES games, but that’s neither here nor there). When I returned to the Deluxe, something I didn’t expect happened: I liked it a lot more now. All the problems of the coin-op are here. The movement sucks, and the enemies can be kind of nonsensical in their behavior. It’s also still “inside baseball” but at least in Space Raft Deluxe, Bernie Sanders and the Green Bay Packers show up, so I’m not completely staring at the screen blankly thinking “I have no idea what’s happening.” But, it’s also clearly the better game. I think the only area where the arcade game is superior is in the driving parts, which are my least favorite sections anyway. Deluxe lives up to the name. The level design is better. The bosses are better. It also does a lot more to change-up the formula. Some rooms might not have you collecting anything at all and instead just clearing a path to the next screen. Hell, the genre itself changes in the third world for two levels and feels more like Legend of Zelda dungeons. Best of all, this more expanded Space Raft made me nostalgic for the type of smaller, more heartfelt personal game that is weird and means more to the developer than it ever could to the player.

See, stuff like this is strange for me. I feel like I’m almost reading a person’s diary or something. This game has a lot of call backs to the good ole days. They’re just not MY good ole days. I’ve always had this belief that if there is such a thing as Heaven, then it’s probably reliving the best, most happy days of your entire life on an endless loop. Space Raft is like someone took that and made a game based loosely on it. By the way, the next graphic is of the Mistreaters standing in front of their burning van. Who are the Mistreaters? (shrug) No clue. In my headcanon, they’re to Space Raft what the Misfits are to Jem and the Holograms.

Space Raft isn’t a fantastic game by any stretch. The movement is frustrating and the enemies feel like they just sort of wander aimlessly. Plus, all the inside jokes were overwhelming for me. Have you ever been to a party where there’s a group of people listening to someone tell a story, and they’re clearly hanging on the person’s every word, but you missed most of it. Then, when everyone laughs at the resolution, you feel awkward but laugh anyway? Yea, that’s where I’m at with Space Raft. I feel like these jokes and references might kill with the right crowd, while I’m just nodding along and feigning a smile. But hell, I used to play games like this ALL THE TIME in my first few years of Indie Gamer Chick. This is exactly the type of personal experience I want to see translated more to games. It’s a quirky game created for the amusement of a small group of people that the developer had the guts to put out for the masses, even if they won’t understand most of the bits. I just wish I felt more invited into this world. Maybe this is the best you can do with 8-bits. A lot of the gags in the game feel like they’d make for a better sitcom than a video game. Something for these guys to think about.

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As a trip down memory lane from the developer’s point of view, I’m not sure it hit the right notes to leave me charmed. All I have is the gameplay stuff, and it’s fine. I can’t say it makes for a convincing NES game because it has swearing and battles against sentient dog sh*t. I always prefer when developers follow the restrictions studios had in the 80s and 90s and see how close they can come to crossing the line without actually crossing it. But the level design is decent enough and there’s an effort to change up the set pieces and create a sense of adventure. The emulation package is decent, too. No rewind, but it’s not exactly the world’s hardest game. Save states are here, along with concept art and the original NES instruction book and box art. Nice.

This is the part I lost the most lives on in the game, by far. All the van parts are auto-scrolling, and it’s too easy to get hung up on the barrels and unable to move unclip yourself before the scrolling kills you.

If I have one last gripe, it’s that they didn’t quite stick the landing on ending the game, as the worst driving sequence in Space Raft is actually the grand finale. They should have recognized the Zelda-like sequences were their bread & butter and finished on one of those. There’s a LOT of room for improvement, but as a 2019/2020 first game from the guys involved, guys who are getting a LOT better at making games, I’ve played a lot worse. Most importantly, what’s here is a little more fun than it is frustrating, and fun is all I’ve ever cared about. But, realistically, this should be a game that’s made as a limited-quantity physical release that’s sold in Wisconsin gift shops. I don’t even mean that as a negative, either. I think it’s wonderful that an indie game can celebrate local culture. Seriously, if *I* were to make a game, I’d probably be something like this, only it’d be about Emperor Norton and you’d only be able to find it in mom & pop shops in the Bay Area. Put that game on the eShop and people would be like “who the f*ck is Emperor Norton and what the f*ck is Original Joe’s?” It’s inside baseball.
Verdict: YES!