Victory Heat Rally (Christmas SAGE 2023 demo)
SAGE is the Sonic Amateur Games Expo–although the developer has had intentions of releasing the game commercially: there are older demos on Steam Victory Heat Rally on Steam (2022) and itch Victory Heat Rally by skydevilpalm, Colonel Sandwich (2021) that appear to have different modes, and a driver select, which this SAGE demo does not. Earlier visuals
had an elevated, segmented Power Drift look; the tracks are smoothed out in these more recent demos, but the cars and the stage sprites still have a definite old Sega “Super Scaler” arcade look, and you could call the overall vibe an updated Sega “blue skies” style with an even more up-tempo theme.
The itch page indicates that dev skydevilpalm is two artists (“based in Las Vegas,” according to their home page https://www.skydevilpalm.com/), and the game has other contributors for other aspects.
The itch page also still says the game will be published in 2022; there have been complaints on Steam and itch that the devs have been silent lately, and even the recent SAGE demo downplays the updates somewhat, but a response to one complaint notes that the devs post regularly on X–which I have not verified as I don’t want to log on to X if I can possibly avoid doing so. :PP
There’s also a 2020 demo–which I also did not try–on SAGE host site SFGHQ: Victory Heat Rally | Sonic Fan Games HQ
This 2023 SAGE demo features cotton candy sweet graphics and music, glitchy, harsh, unbalanced sounds, control mapping that can leave you unable to navigate the menus (which I did, of course; reinstalling didn’t help but I was able to reset my controls by deleting the config file from my Windows user profile folder (C:\Users[USERNAME]\AppData\Local\VHR_THE_FINAL), thanks to a tip at controls are awefull game has a good consept :: Victory Heat Rally General Discussions : D) (and the game didn’t respond on my DS4, even using DS4Windows; the DS4 worked fine with it when run as a non-Steam game through Steam, though) (and the menu BACK key ISN’T Esc, it’s Backspace = ooo…so people are gonna get stuuuuuck if they’re like me ; ), and controls that take a little getting used to, but the drift-to-boost shtick quickly becomes addictive.
The controls WERE killing my dang ol’ wrist–I suppose maybe because it’s SO over-the-top arcadey that there’s never a reason to use Brake or release Accelerate–until I found, in the MISC menu–which unlike the other option screens can only be accessed from the main menu, not the Pause menu = oo–the “AUTO ACCEL” option, which holds the gas pedal down for you! = D A feature every true arcade racing game should have, my tortured ol’ joints say! ^ _^ (I refer you also to the otherwise janky 10-second racing segment in a side route in Seaside Hill Act 2 in Sonic Generations https://youtu.be/WbX1l9WEzS4?t=5601 = D)
So, I had fun! Once you get the hang of boosting, the demo rips along, and you can absolutely nuke the little super-deformed CPU cars off the track if you slam into them hard enough. The last stage in the demo is a rally stage, with Sega Rally-style turn call-outs. ^ D^