The star of Deliver At All Costs is a courier who's been pushed to the edge by "impossible schedules, eternal gridlocks, impatient customers, and their insatiable materialistic dispositions." A feeling I imagine a lot of overworked, undervalued delivery drivers are experiencing these days where people are ordering more crap online than ever. (Guilty.)
But while most real workers have to just quietly deal with it, keep their head down, and grind their shifts out to put food on the table, this guy has had enough. He's been let go by his boss, and has decided to go out in style, taking his instruction to deliver a final lot of packages "at all costs" literally.
Deliver At All Costs is an isometric driving game with some very fun, silly, and ridiculously bouncy physics. Your pick-up truck topples over at the slightest nudge, and slamming the spacebar lets you skid it dramatically around corners. It's twitchy and kinda buggy, but man, sliding your little truck around this highly destructible town is hugely entertaining.
But the best bit is actually delivering the packages. Hit the Q key near a drop-off point and a spring in the back of the truck launches it violently at the recipient, often destroying their home or knocking them on their ass in the process. Pinging these boxes around the town, and watching the havoc unfold, is really satisfying, even when the game inevitably breaks and your truck gets stuck in something, forcing you to restart.
You only have a few minutes to deliver all your packages, which means learning the map and figuring out an efficient route. But if you can't be bothered with that, there's a free roam mode that lets you just crash around at your leisure, breaking stuff for the hell of it. It kinda reminds me of Carmageddon.
If this all sounds a bit evil, don't worry: the game has its tongue wedged firmly in its cheek. It's exaggerated and cartoonish and the chirpy 1950s radio soundtrack is an inspired touch. Causing mayhem to the tune of Rockin' Robin, and hilariously outdated vintage radio ads, lends the game an extra layer of idiosyncratic chaos. It has a really infectious energy.
Deliver At All Costs is actually a school project, developed by Swedish students *deep breath* Lars Olsson, Oscar Elmgren, Jimmy Hultén, Simon Bengtsson, Daniel Nielsen, Jakob Bülow, and Robin Vondrak. It's free and you can download it from Itch right now. It's rough in places and the controls can be frustrating, but it's absolutely worth 15 minutes of your day.
