📽️🍿 Rifftrax: The Game XSX Review 9/10 @widerightgames "The creators of What the Dub once again strike comedy gold" 📽️🍿 #IndieGame #GameDev

Having been a big fan of Wide Right’s previous game, What the Dub – I was intrigued as to how Rifftrax: The Game would differ, and what it would bring to the table – especially as it appears to be based on a more American-centric show not familiar to me at all (although I was vaguely aware of the precursor show Mystery Science Theatre 3000).

It turns out that no prior knowledge of Rifftrax is required, as Wide Right Games have created a fantastic and often hilarious party game that is accessible to all, and this is a game I highly recommend whenever you have friends or family around.

Comprising over 250 clips from low budget films from directors such as Ed Wood, Godfrey Ho and a slew of others*, Rifftrax: The Game is similar to What the Dub in how it allows up to six players to join in the fun with their mobile phones (the game uses a website in a similar vein to the Jackbox titles), watch a clip, type in or select – more on this later – your response, watch the shenanigans unfold– and finally, vote on your favourite. Needless to say, as the drinks flowed, the barriers came down and our group moved from light-hearted banter and cheeky responses to full-blown, expletive-laden, incredibly dark humour and non-sequiturs. Good.

The game gives you a really impressive number of options in terms of customising how you wish to play. You can select anything from 5 to 10 rounds, the length of time given to answer questions and also if you want to view the clip a second time in case anyone missed it the first time around – a must for larger (or louder!) groups of players.

On top of all this, you can censor the use of curse words and also opt to ‘select a riff’ as opposed to creating your own, a real boon for those who wish to join in but maybe feel less creatively minded or perhaps a good choice for younger players. High five to Wide Right Games for the level of accessibility and inclusion - oh, and you can also add myriad sound effects to enhance your answer, which resulted in some golden comedy moments.

Aside from the occasional drop-out in gameplay for a single person during voting – possibly due to clicking off the website on their mobile devices, which just requires a screen refresh - the connectivity and simplicity of setup and customising Rifftrax: The Game is to be lauded. The aesthetic focus on these being VHS ‘classics’ and the ‘fuzzy tracking’ segways between scenes and options screens really add to the vintage, low budget vibe.

We had multiple sessions of Rifftrax: The Game during my recent gaming night as people genuinely couldn’t get enough of it, and my fiancée and I have dipped in for a few games as well, it’s a universally fun game that has a surprisingly tight design and a strong, light-hearted theme that harks back to the good ole days of VHS movie-watching.

Now go and buy Godfrey Ho’s entire back catalogue… and give it to me. 

*The very first clip I encountered was one from a Godfrey Ho movie, I assumed it was one of his because not a single character was fully in frame, not even the person delivering dialogue – a classic Godfrey trademark.