played the Tipston Salvage demo with my sister tonight (who very rarely plays video games outside of Animal Crossing and Stardew Valley) and we had a blast.
it’s very cute! a lot of the menus are in-game. you move a “paint” box to the painting machine to change colors. you put together a team name by moving letter boxes around (reminded me a bit of playing w/ fridge magnets). you manipulate levers and buttons to choose levels. each level starts with a “planning” phase where players can point at things and draw on the screen to work out how to be the most efficient given the elements in the level.
it defaults to insane controls and i quickly changed it to the “2 stick” layout, which makes left stick control throttle and right stick control turning (which i’m pretty sure was how Storage Inc. worked). my less game-literate sister didn’t have much trouble picking up the 2 stick controls, either. the boost is fun and snappy and the forklift is really fun to maneuver around. the “grab” is particularly tactile – the forklift lurches forward like a hungry hungry hippo and makes a satisfying metal ratchet-y sound. feels snappy in the same way that a pinball flipper does.
definitely channels the main thrust of “Storage Inc” but all the levels are more inventive with thoughtful layouts and mechanics. there’s a plethora of medals to achieve in each stage so you always have something to shoot for regardless of the skill level of the group you’re playing with. i don’t think there are hard “failure” states – mistakes just add time. my sister and i were pretty happy to get gold medals, but there are secret platinum medals, and then at least one other medal type past that. thought i was done w/ the singleplayer content in the demo but then a new medal unlocked after i had gotten all the platinum (and i had to really struggle to get platinum on some levels).
will probably be my go-to local co-op game for a while!
