Quadrilateral Cowboy Reviews
A perfect storm of ideas
This “hacker” proof-of-concept has passed, but it’s not for full price recommendation, even if it’s an indie title. You will enjoy the beginning, at times you will feel smart and you will want a little bit more of everything, and it’s certainly worth trying at some sale or with a discount, but not at the current price.
However stunted and underexplored its more traditional gameplay segments might be, Quadrilateral Cowboy is a clever, creative, elegantly delivered jaunt through a retro-cyberpunk world that’s just warped enough to make sense.
If you want a nonsensical story with a serious focus on terminal-based gameplay, you’re going to find yourself pleasantly surprised with Quadrilateral Cowboy.
Quadrilateral Cowboy's fascination with precision is only matched by its fondness for personalized anarchy. Imagine the empowerment of executing a line of effective and largely improvised code combined with the ignorance that you're just moments away from shooting yourself in the head. At its best, Quadrilateral Cowboy is all of the fun and experimentation of retro-future cyber heists without all of the existential horror that comes with most definitions of mortality.
Quadrilateral Cowboy is one of those pleasant surprises, adding new depth to the puzzle genre and injecting a little bit of charm in between the heists.
Quadrilateral Cowboy is an extremely unique game that is only hampered by it’s later innovations and simple story. However, the way the game presents these aspects make up for their shortcomings. The sense of awe with every task is wonderful, and it’s mind-blowing how inserting commands over and over doesn’t feel repetitious, thanks to strong design. It might be a bit unaccesible for those who haven’t played a puzzle game in a long while, but it will definitely cater to the fanatics.
Though Quadrilateral Cowboy is quasi-futuristic, the skills it imbues the player with are, by comparison, banal. But in asking the player to perform meaningful mental labor to accomplish the task at hand, the banal becomes surprisingly gratifying. And even if it doesn’t quite live up to its potential, Quadrilateral Cowboy made me feel like a hacker for a while. That’s pretty damn cool.
It might be too short and a bit clunky, but Brendon Chung’s newest effort finds joy in the weird and wonderful retro-future world of 1980s coding
Quadrilateral Cowboy is the perfect mix of cybercrime and cyberpunk, that trades in the darker, hard-edged aesthetic of Mr. Robot and Uplink for something that's infinitely more charming and endearing.
Quadrilateral Cowboy’s celebration of youthful revolt hides in plain sight
This scrappy, surreal escapade cleverly uses programming as a game mechanic, but can't quite follow through on its ideas.
One of the best hacking-themed video games ever, and a clever puzzler with some surprisingly successful storytelling elements.
A smart, engaging puzzler with a great central mechanic.
Quadrilateral Cowboy’s puzzles are mostly a joy to play. Its command line hacking is surprisingly accessible and pleasingly tactile, and when combined with its many interesting gadgets it allows for plenty of creative problem-solving and freedom in tackling all manner of whimsical cybercrime. While not all of its levels shine as brightly as the rest, I’m already feeling beckoned back by its replayability and charm, eager to experiment more with the futuristic, hacker-themed playground it so stylishly constructs.
It feels as if Quadrilateral Cowboy never finds a solution to this problem, but it moves through different ideas quickly enough, and does enough with its cool, colourful world and story of silent friendship, that I enjoyed my time with it.
Don’t let Quadrilateral Cowboy slip through your fingers
A game about conducting heists from behind a pc screen? It sure sounds mundane and complicated. Blendo Games though, have somehow managed to pull it off with ease in Quadrilateral Cowboy. They’ve put together a highly polished, surprisingly enjoyable product - one which every gamer should at least consider playing at some point.
Despite a mind-boggling choice to switch things up drastically midway, Quadrilateral Cowboy is an innovative puzzler that plays with both the angles of hacking and heist films in a terrific way, making for something that those who enjoy brain-teasers with a bit of spice will enjoy.
Quadrilateral Cowboy makes you feel like a skilled hacker in a memorable 1980’s cyberpunk world.