What I’ve found while playing through loads of weird games of all sorts on the Switch this generation, is that finding the right mix of elements, structure, and sensibilities that lead to great gameplay is hard. In general, there does seem to be a critical balance you need to find to get the best results though. In particular, I’ve tended to struggle with more sandbox-style games where you’re given the freedom to do what you’d like in whatever order. As that’s the sort of experience Tiny Terry's Turbo Trip serves up, I found that my emotions on it ended up being quite mixed.

Starting with the positive, if you enjoy games where the goal is to explore and experiment, with the idea being that you’ll discover strange and fun elements as you go, this will be your kind of title. While you do have an ultimate goal in mind, and that’s to be launched into space, outside of a handful of defined core objectives you don’t have much in the way of direction. You’ll discover pretty quickly that your goal will be to drive, run, and jump your way around town, trying to grab every bit of Turbo Scrap that’s conveniently laying around. Where the fun lies is with all of the odd characters, conversations, and moments you’ll have trying to accomplish that.

In terms of the issues, the first that comes to mind is that the game is a bit wonky. Characters clip through walls, you’ll periodically run into things that feel both glitchy and somewhat intentional, and in general your core moves and the way the camera works are simply a bit off. The thing is, in these sorts of weirdo titles those quirks can actually be part of the charm, but strangely enough I’d say Turbo Trip fails to go far enough with the glitches and weirdness to realize its potential. Unlike titles like Goat Simulator, where the developer obviously went all-in on making the game’s janky edges bad enough to turn the corner and make it lovable in an odd way, this feels more non-committal so you could question whether the game is just sloppy. For me many of the attempts at humor also fell flat, but that can also be a case where not everybody will find the same things funny, so feelings are likely to vary in that area.

While I appreciate the pretty bite-sized dose of silliness this title delivers, as a connoisseur of weird games I’d also say that in the end I just found it middling. Rather than going all in on weird and janky controls and physics it instead plays it mostly straight. By being in a pretty constrained city setting, it also feels like it wasn’t able to more fully explore the creation of a more odd and surprising world, just a pretty small corner of it. While it can make for a few fun hours if you’re aligned with its odd sensibilities, I’d argue that there are a number of better funky choices out there if you’re down for something weird.