Skateboarding and BMX are two genres that have fallen into relative obscurity in the modern era of gaming. The two had a very modest following in the 90s and early 2000s. I would wager that most 90s kids like me have probably played a Tony Hawk Pro Skater game at one point.  So, how does Motordoom by Hobo Cat Games accomplish bringing the genre back?

Simple: They turned it into a roguelike!

Motordoom (stylized as Motördoom) aims to modernize the appeal of classic BMX games by turning it into a “horde survival roguelike” in the vein of games like Vampire Survivors and 20 Minutes till Dawn. In addition to performing all sorts of rad stunts, you are packing heat, and there are a bunch of demons to kill. No plot? No problem! The game is your playground.

Ride or Die

Motordoom is a simple game premise. You play as one of six characters, two available at the start. Experience points are earned by killing fleshy monsters, collecting gems, and performing bike tricks. In endless and single-run modes, it’s all about getting as many points as you can using these methods. However, the real challenge and interest of the game comes in the career mode, where you must perform all sorts of tasks. Each career level ends with a boss encounter to win the round, while bosses appear in a random order every few minutes in endless runs.

As stated, the game starts with two characters with unique weapons. The Motorguy has an uzi with a decent fire and damage rate. The Boner Brothers sacrificed some of that damage and had a longer reload in exchange for the one riding in the passenger seat auto-firing so the player could focus on stunts. Other characters tend to have less ammo for piercing damage or rockets. Every character also has unlockable equipment like a front-end chainsaw, a jetpack to get a double jump, and an additional machine gun or shotgun. These bike upgrades are universal throughout all the characters.

Experience points are used for card-based upgrades such as better balance while grinding or performing a wheelie or having your damage increased while doing them. Some of the more interesting ones are elemental-based attacks. Some deal fire damage or call down lightning bolts for additional damage on hit, but there are amusing ideas.

Motordoom is endearing with how much they mix the BMX gameplay with the upgrades. The player will tend to grind for better mobility and points, so why not have flamethrowers shoot from the side? Throw in a demonic ritual circle that deals AOE damage when barreling through monsters while doing a wheelie. The cards give the player so much versatility and play to their strengths; I only wish there was an option to “banish” certain cards from showing up, like in Vampire Survivors.  

Killing to D-beat of the Music

If there’s one thing that Motordoom has, it is STYLE. The game has a punk rock/metal aesthetic that is hard to ignore. I’m probably not alone when I say that as soon as I saw the Boner Brothers in the screenshots, two skeleton twins riding a motorcycle, I was immediately interested in Motordoom. The pentagrams, fleshy cult monsters, and buckets of blood only strengthened that. The game needs fittingly hardcore music to back the carnage up, and it certainly delivers!

Accompanying your mayhem is a fittingly in-your-face soundtrack courtesy of Filthscum. Motordoom barrages you with d-beat goodness with some crust punk and extreme metal influence. It gives the game a unique identity. D-beat and crust punk are very much niche genres of music. D-beat is a form of hardcore punk inspired by the influential British band Discharge, which has a specific drum beat and has inspired many extreme metal bands. I see other players compare the music to speed metal, like Motörhead and Venom, but I knew it wasn’t quite right, even if it was within the same ballpark. I’m glad I have this space to discuss an underrated punk genre. This game has a specific taste in motifs, atmosphere, and music.  

If I had any complaints about the soundtrack, it would be that the music plays everywhere. There isn’t a moment where it isn’t blasting in Motordoom, even between menus. The short run time of the tracks can make it a bit repetitive. I was almost sick of the soundtrack at the end of my first day. That said, I’m still glad that it’s there. You can check out the album on Bandcamp and Steam for those interested. I recommend it if punk or metal is your thing. Better yet, you can even unlock the guy on the front cover of the soundtrack as a playable character – complete with the bike and molotov cocktail!

Anyway, enough of the impromptu music review. Let’s talk about Motordoom’s mechanics in more detail.

Career Mode and the Arenas

I wanted to talk more in-depth about Motordoom’s career mode because the game shines strongest in its current state, and that is where my few real complaints come from. Endless mode was a lot of fun once I got the core movement mechanics of the game down. I would not recommend it for new players as a practice ground, because the game has a habit of making you fight the final boss when you have barely any upgrades. The first two career mode levels are a much safer and more consistent option for practicing.

There are ten objectives at every level in career mode. Three goals are earned for reaching a certain score threshold. One involves keeping a longer combo, while the other is scoring as many points as possible in a combo. Two involve collecting letters, one of which you must do in a combo. There are also demonic contracts in each stage, which are used to unlock the other player characters. The last is interacting with a unique environment set piece, such as grinding on a specific rail, or breaking crates hidden around the map. Finally, you defeat a unique boss at the end of each stage. These are all neat missions to have and make for a decent challenge, but there were a few issues found with some of the later levels.

A Troublesome Middle

The two middle levels- Rotten Docks and Castle Crow- gave me some issues outside the Motordoom’s general difficulty. In the former, I realized that I needed to change some of the game’s controls and settings. Specifically, up until now, it might be hard to remember that the brake exists. When falling from the dock into the water below, the game tends to respawn you about to turn back into the water again. While amusingly, this can be used as a start of a combo since the player can bounce off the invisible walls. So, it was a gripe that needed the brakes to be remapped. Unfortunately, at the time of writing, there isn’t much in the way of remapping mouse and keyboard controls. I could not map some of the key bindings into the side mouse buttons, only to the keyboard.

Speaking of Motordoom’s settings, it is highly recommended to turn off the blood and gore. Castle Crow’s level objective of destroying the skewered corpses can be hard with all the gibs flying. The hitbox on the rails also seems to be a lot more precise than on previous maps, as there was a struggle getting atop some of them. There was also the issue of Castle Crow’s boss, who would aggressively try to attack and usually get melted. In the first playthrough of Castle Crow, they died as soon as they spawned in without me even seeing them! It was hysterical, but it did set me back from being able to do the other objectives. All of these were relatively small issues, but they did pile up during the mid-game of Motordoom.

Final Thoughts

Motordoom is an excellent title that has quite a bit of replay value. There were a few gripes with balance and level design, but many other issues are easily patchable. However, it’s still a worthy game, and the developer is promising even more upcoming content to get excited about. If you’re looking for weird sports-type games or grew up on Tony Hawk or Dave Mira games, consider Motordoom today.

Motordoom is available on PC for Steam. The game retails for $13.99.