Chill racing-adventure game

Desert Child is a premium adventure game from Akupara Games. This overall relaxing game combines racing, a sprawling urban world, and a lot of minigames. You play as a young hoverbike driver down on your luck. Do whatever you have to do in order to join the biggest race in the universe, the Grand Prix on Mars. 

Desert Child uses retro pixel art styles and is fluidly animated, on top of having a lot of content. Only a few modern titles can boast great gameplay with this design, similar to Dead Cells or There is No Game: Wrong Dimension.

An immersive YA adventure

At its core, Desert Child feels like a young adult (YA) novel that unfolds right in front of you. You have a street urchin filled with spunk and talent, doing morally questionable things in order to achieve his dreams—and look good while doing it. In this game, the racing experience comes in the form of underground street races, wildlife hunting, or even doing delivery. 

Players can say that this game is one of those aesthetic experiences where the visuals and the audio match to create a unified appeal. In this case, the colorful pixel art graphics are accompanied by some relaxing lo-fi hip-hop soundtrack. Even the interactions with the different characters lend to small bits of lore about the world. To complete the vibes, it even has its own cuisine you can explore.

With all those things said, the game may not be for everyone. As you grind for your Grand Prix ticket, you’ll have to do the same things over and over again, making it tedious in the long run. Also, there are certain gameplay mechanics that are not fleshed out enough. When you fail to hack a terminal, an alarm sounds, but nothing comes for you aside from the repeating noise.

Racing sim with a story

If you’d like a racing experience that offers some variety, Desert Child is a good place to start. Aside from the changing backgrounds, the races also differ in nature on top of the character’s ultimate goal of being racing-centered too. Its gameplay, graphics, and audio all work together to create a specific vibe. There are some gameplay mechanics that feel tiring or grindy at times, but it’s still fun.