Quadrilateral Cowboy Reviews
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.
There’s the kernel of a great game here, and I’m looking forward to going into Blendo Games’ backlog to see what other interesting ideas Brendon Chung has had, even if this one is held back by missteps or creative choices that I don’t enjoy.
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.
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.
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.
A perfect storm of ideas
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.
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
A smart, engaging puzzler with a great central mechanic.
Quadrilateral Cowboy’s a game that gets hacking right – if you permit me calling it that – with the command line interface brilliantly letting you manipulate the world and use the other tools of the cyberpunk heisting trade. It’s effortlessly cool, from a slightly nerdy retro perspective, but hidden beneath that, there’s a simple and very ordinary feeling tale of a trio of kickass women living outside the law and pulling off ever more outlandish heists.
I can easily recommend Quadrilateral Cowboy, one of my favorite indie games so far this year, to anyone looking for an adventure game that brings something that feels fresh and new to the table and leaves you feeling smart as you've become a hacking god, or in this case goddess.
Quadrilateral Cowboy teaches you to use its toys, but doesn't give a lot of room to use them
One of the best hacking-themed video games ever, and a clever puzzler with some surprisingly successful storytelling elements.
A few technical issues aside, Quadrilateral Cowboy is a clever puzzle game bursting with personality.
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’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.
Don’t let Quadrilateral Cowboy slip through your fingers
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 is one of those pleasant surprises, adding new depth to the puzzle genre and injecting a little bit of charm in between the heists.