How good are you at following instructions? How about if you don’t have a timer? What if your life depends on it? I? Maybe not so great. Maybe.
Uncle Chop’s racket shop this is probably the last game i’m looking forward to this year. Well, assuming a few of them that have been silent for a while don’t drop. Either way, when playing the demo, it’s strenuous not to fall in love with the challenging diagnosis, replacement and repair gameplay, filled with shadowy humor and edgy potty humor.
So I binge-eaten it when I finally got my hands on it for this review, but after all the time I put into it, I still haven’t managed to get my hands on the credits. After, uh, 25 hours, I still haven’t gotten the point Uncle Chop’s racket shopbut I’ve seen enough to tell you that you should definitely play this game if you think you can handle the punishment.
Uncle Chop’s Rocket Shop (computer)
Developer: Beard envy
Publisher: Kasedo Games
Released: December 5, 2024
Suggested retail price: $19.99
Uncle Chop’s racket shop it’s ostensibly a game about repair. People arrive with their damaged spacecraft and it’s up to you to diagnose the problems and make repairs. Each ship is divided into modules, and each ship has a random variety and number of modules. The modules include fuel, oil and oxygen, artificial intelligence, reactors and just one huge lever. You’re told what needs fixing, so you don’t have to wonder which one is broken, but each one breaks down in a different way, so it’s up to you to decide what needs fixing and what it looks like when everything works.
The whole thing is operated via a touch interface, which is used to pull levers and buttons. Once you find something broken, you need to go to the store (right next to the repair station) to buy a replacement and put it in. You can get a welding machine to restore the broken parts, but I found this a bit unnecessary since the parts are relatively budget-friendly. It’s a game that evokes similar sensations I’m asking for the papersbut with less paperwork and more turn signal fluid.
To support, you get a comprehensive user manual that covers everything you need to know… mostly. You usually don’t have context for what’s going on until you see the module itself and learn about the different parts of it. Even if you do this, it’s not strenuous to make a mistake. You might mix up the pancakes or forget to close the hatch when you’re done. Personally, I never got to the point where I felt completely confident in front of the reactor. But if you make the wrong move, they will blow up in your face and at least take you with them. Perhaps also the surrounding area.
You play as Wilbur, a hapless guy with a four-eyed fox head. He is the newest in the line of mechanics employed by the company Uncle Chop’s racket shop. Hints are dropped about what happened to the previous ones, but you can probably guess. You have a free hand in running the store. Most of the profit you make is yours, but you must pay rent to Uncle Chop RENT every three days to stay employed.
But before you get your hands really soiled, some guy shows up and blows your (fox’s) head off. This is a good indication of how things will continue to develop.
You are saved by a co-worker who is also the living personification of death. You’ve made an impression, so every time you screw up enough to die, it “takes” you back to the beginning of your employment. The purpose of this isn’t entirely clear at first, but it’s nice to have job security. Yes, technically it is a roguelite.
There are two game modes available in the game Uncle Chop’s racket shop. In the first case, the day passes in real time and you can engage in as many activities as possible before going to bed. This means there’s a lot of pressure and you’ll have to flip through the manual quite quickly when you encounter something you’re not entirely familiar with. It also leaves more room for errors.
The second way to play removes the time limit. You are given space to complete three tasks and can complete them for as long as you want. Making a mistake (or “fuck up” as the game calls it) results in harsher penalties. However, in my experience, this is a much easier way to play. When you have all the time you need, it is easier to complete the task without making any mistakes.
This doesn’t necessarily feel like the intended way of playing. However, this also seems to be a necessary compromise. Uncle Chop’s racket shop Is brutal. He keeps throwing recent things at you, practically smashing you right into the wall. It can be cruel. Wait until you see the reactor for the first time. Yes, you have read this manual before. Start doing. This won’t support. You’re one shift away from slamming your face into a nuclear weapon.
Sometimes, after taking out the first RENT, the guy will land with pipe bombs strapped to his ship. It doesn’t matter if you have the timer on, you’ll have a minute and a half to figure out which wires need to be cut using one hell of a Venn diagram. I got really good at defusing bombs. I’m a wizard at reading Venn diagrams.
Even if you have all the time in the world, it only takes one slip up to ruin your entire escape. Some clients have a “perfectionist” trait, which means that if you make even one mistake, it will completely negate everything you did correctly and deprive you of your funds. This is risky because you only need to leave one shot too few in the ID module to lose all your strenuous work. If you miss RENT, termination of your employment contract is the least of your worries.
There is also the risk that a customer will come along requiring a repair that you cannot provide. Sometimes this happens before you have a pancake machine that you need to build specialized parts, but I also had one that needed a fuse that I couldn’t purchase yet. I’m not sure if this is an intentional design. The game will sometimes tell you that you don’t have the machines needed to repair your ship before you start working, but this doesn’t work every time. I learned to buy Pancake and Encoder machines right at the beginning of the first run and avoid rebreathers on day one.
But still, my last run came to an end because I accepted a job from an armed client. He tried to rob me, but when I refused to empty my pockets, he blew my brains out. This is Fuck You and Find Out: Game.
It’s okay though. Every time my run got nuked, I just slumped my shoulders and decided if I had time for another run. The only thing that annoyed me was that my deadline was approaching and I like it when a game is beaten before writing a review because you never know when something will fall apart at the last minute. However, I think I’ve reached essentially the end (there seem to be many of them). All I know is that there’s still a lot of hidden stuff left, because the places you can stick your fingers into to discover secrets are always exposed.
What made it so strenuous to stay mad at it was that even after dozens of reboots, recent things were still coming out. Not necessarily modules; I know how to repair a rebreather in my sleep. It’s interactions with customers and colleagues. Every time someone gets off the ship, you never know if they’re going to hug you or complain that you smell like a soggy dog. Visiting the premises before or after work also gives you the opportunity to see more of the station’s residents and take on side quests.
But maybe it’s a fact Uncle Chop’s racket shop it doesn’t rely entirely on the cruelty towards Wilbur, which makes it more bearable. While watching a hapless hero suffer is entertaining and seems appropriate in a work environment, it can become tiring. Instead, most of the characters have a softer side. Droose in particular seems to care about Wilbur and some of his moments with him are endearing. He and some customers will often offer words of encouragement, even when others are deliberately trying to blow you up.
Uncle Chop’s racket shop that’s a lot. This is much more than it needs to be. While its design is compact and well-executed, it offers obscene variety and a seemingly endless amount of things to see. Which is good, especially if you’re like me and find yourself in a hellish cycle of 11-hour misses that prevent you from seeing the last hour tick by. And I think it says a lot when, despite how badly I have been hurt by his ruthless nature, I am joyful to start a recent course and try again.
It’s quite clear that not everyone will think this way. A game that involves throwing levers and repeatedly blowing things up won’t appeal to some. And while progress is sustainable, the only thing you carry over between runs that will support you is what you were able to learn. A passion for solving problems will take you far.
But whether or not this is the type of game you think you’ll enjoy, it’s clear that Uncle Chop’s racket shop is exactly what it wants to be. It’s an expert mix of cruel everyday DIY and shadowy, vulgar humor. A bottomless pit full of brutally comedic moments, tantalizing secrets and puzzles that require the manual skills of Ikea furniture. If you have room in your skull for really useless knowledge and you can tolerate being stepped on in the face a few times, you’ve got a friend Uncle Chop.
