The Joylancer Brings Ridiculous Combat Speed to Early Access

If you’re having a hard time telling what’s going on in the screenshots for The Joylancer: Legendary Motor Knight, then I’m here to tell you that it has nothing to do with the Game Boy look. It’s because Alpha Six Productions has created a game that only goes at full tilt, ludicrous speed at all times. Combat and movement have been permanently joined at the hip, creating a game that encourages the player to do everything as fast as they can all the time. Sonic, look upon your ruin and weep.

In The Joylancer, all of your combat moves increase your movement abilities. Attacking lets you jump higher, dash more, or fall slower. If you want to complete the game’s tough platforming segments, you’ll need to get these moves down and know how they help you get around. Given the emphasis on doing these moves quickly to fly through the game’s stages and enemies, many moves cancel into each other or link together, turning the player into a blazing juggernaut of destruction. The developer also hints at some interesting boss battle gimmicks, ones that will let skilled players pull off some flashy moves to snatch quick victories.

The developer has worked to add some color choices to the gameplay and menus, letting players customize how they want the game to look and sound while they play it. Alpha Six has also added a four-player deathmatch to give players something else to do when not hurtling through stages at breakneck speeds. The current Early Access release contains three levels to get you excited for the main game, as well as the aforementioned deathmatch mode. Can you keep up with the speedy, power-drilling action?

The Joylancer: Legendary Motor Knight is available on Steam Early Access for $9.99 (currently on sale for $6.99 now!). To learn more about the developer, you can go to their site, head to their itch.io page, or follow them on Twitter.