Spectra is quick with its declaration of objectives. You control the left and right movement a tiny ship down a narrow path. Speed isn’t necessarily in demand, acceleration is control automatically, and the final length of each course is governed by a timer. Challenge arrives in the risk and reward between collecting and accumulating yellow points cubes, a task made increasingly difficult through the glut of bumpers and obstacles populating the cramped highway.
Acquiring points is Spectra’s call to adventure. Collecting point cubes builds into a total that’s either banked into a score after a second (or so) of not picking up any points, or lost completely upon veering into a bright pink obstruction. This is good for a bit of strategy, as it leads to either a completely demoralizing collapse of a formerly-accomplished streak, or a successful plan of attack that eventually banks a ton of points.
Nuance arrives in the form of point multipliers and risky maneuvers. Zipping over a specially marked series of arrows is good for a quick burst of speed, and comes with the added benefit of building into a successive point multiplier. Likewise, briefly veering off the course or grazing an obstacle adds a cool-down timer to a separate and significant point total. Risky and failure-inducing play is essentially rewarded, which is usually a successful earmark of any arcade racer worth its pixels.
It’s all pretty fun for the first ten or so minutes. I was actually quite taken by how much I didn’t need to look directly at my ship, instead managing a focus on the emerging pathway (calling to mind my past days pushing a real car through autocross courses, always be looking ahead). I was piloting my tiny ship through miniscule gaps in the surface that, visually, seemed all but impossible, but the Spectra’s precise controls made it relatively easy.
Unfortunately I started to perceive a weird inconsistency with how Spectra manages inertia and momentum. Sometimes I would collide into obstacles and only suffer a minor and temporary speed reduction. Other times they would bump me wildly off course and force my ship to fall to its doom and fail out of the level. I never got a sense of why the game was responding this way, or what I could do to avoid it when Spectra dumped bumper after bumper in my way. It’s not quite like as hazardous and kinetic as pinball, but it is, at the very least, inconsistent.
Spectra starts running into more trouble when you realize there isn’t exactly much to do outside of its opening gambit. In its first level you race down a highway, which only occasionally diverts into mildly confusing split paths, and avoid obstacles. The remaining nine levels oblige the exact same formula, and only seem to be populated with a slightly increasing number of aggravating obstructions.
Modern peers are a virtual no show, and comparisons to heavily budgeted games like Wipeout or F-Zero aren’t fair, but all one has to do is look to Dyad for a better model of ambition. Dyad changed its rules in every level, offered a more interesting spectrum of lights and color, and wasn’t afraid to push past expectations. Spectra, on the other hand, calls to mind a smaller title from 2014, Little Racers STREET, which started and ended with its identity as a top-down racer. Like Spectra, it does its job, and it does it well—but the job is hardly interesting.
At this point Spectra checks in as qualified middle-of-the road game with a calling only to nostalgia plagued patrons. Fortunately, a silver lining arrives in the form of Chipzel’s spectacular soundtrack. Known for her work on Super Hexagon, Chipzel’s chiptune aesthetic and punishing, occasionally dance-y beats added a much needed sheen to Spectra’s otherwise pedestrian character. It’s funny, previously I suspected Chipzel’s music only applied to the fleeting intensity of rounds of Super Hexagon, but her longer and more diverse output also has a fitting home in Spectra’s score-chasing exploits.
Regarding longevity, Spectra punches its weight in the $5 game category, but it’s ultimately too shallow and too demanding to last more than a run across all its levels. A hardcore mode is unlocked after playing through all ten courses, but a greater number of obstacles wasn’t exactly something I was clamoring for after two hours of dancing around them. In the end, I suppose I stuck around so long to avoid the penalty of falling of course, which was the only way I could hear the full run of Chipzel’s soundtrack.
Spectra’s enduring disposition is left to the wind. There’s a chance it could pick up and sweep away an unaware mass of players, all righteously competing with each other in the everlasting pursuit of higher and higher scores. There’s a better chance that Spectra is a gentle breeze, passing by most, but affecting a wandering few who may stop to think, “Well, isn’t this nice?”
