Take a Ride through History in Time Drifter

Some indie games take a well-trodden path and go off at a slight tangent to create something familiar but with a different angle. Time Drifter doesn’t just take a slightly different path – it launches into Roman history in a mad whirlwind of action. It’s a really entertaining game, and the story will keep you engaged long after you’ve finished polishing off your helmeted enemies.

Let’s start our look at Time Drifter with some analysis of the main baddie and your character, whose heart is very much in the right place. In this free-to-play battle game for Mac and Linux, you take the role of a happy-go-lucky janitor in Time Drifter, which advances you until you take on the end boss to unlock the Endless mode. As John Lennon once sang, it’s clean-up time.

Which animal would you pick to be a baddie? If you chose the Panda, congratulations on designing Time Drifter. As the janitor, you’ve got to travel through time, using the ‘drift’ of his janitor’s truck to wipe up humanity’s anti-heroes along the way. After scientists turned a bamboo-munching mammal into an all-powerful God-like black and white beast, the janitor’s luckless task is to battle his way to vengeance and the ultimate boss.

While you’re cleaning up the Roman rubbish (any battle in the Roman Colosseum is a lot of fun), you’re working your way towards the evil Panda and an ultimate showdown. The janitor’s truck can go as fast as you like going forward, but you need to master the drift function and sweep across your opponents to take them out while avoiding some pesky weapons they’re firing at you.

The function of turning the steering wheel left or right to hit your enemies takes some getting used to because the instinct in gameplay is just to mow them down head-on – well, that was my instinct anyway. But if you sweep up enough enemies, you’ll top up your ultimate ability, and this energy transfers into the power to slow downtime. This battle mechanism drives Time Drifter from being a simple multi-level battle game to one where you can focus on new features and your end goal – killing the Panda.

After you’ve battled your way out of the Colosseum, you’ll unlock the Endless mode, where you climb the Endless Tower (which sounds like the kind of burger for me), which pits you against the entire Roman population. Each level has ten rounds, each of which increases in difficulty to such a degree that you’re soon getting swamped by spear-wielding Roman warriors.

If you want to look at the highly original gameplay, then watch this walk-through before you view the official trailer.

I really enjoyed Time Drifter, and I’d advise just picking it up for free and having a go at the game. If you want an arcade-style battle with novel quirks and original methods of wiping out your enemies, it could be the most fun you’ll have all week!