Review: Dryft City Kyngs

I had dreams and aspirations once. Good times. However, they’ve never included becoming a drift, err… dryft racer. That’s a long and daunting path. I’d probably need to get my driver’s license first.

Dryft City Kyngs doesn’t require those sorts of credentials. All you need is to sell your soul, buy whatever wreck is available, and use whatever skill you have in a desperate attempt to find meaning in life. Too real, guy. Too real.

Dryft City Kyngs (PC)
Developer: magicdweedoo, Nonsense Machine
Publisher: magicdweedoo, Nonsense Machine
Released: June 13, 2024
MSRP: $19.99

Dryft City Kyngs is the story of the offspring of a former Dryft Lord. Your mother really wants you to follow in your footsteps, but being the disappointment you are, you wait until adulthood to really make an attempt.

After a flashback to motherly drill training, you spend an indeterminable amount of time in suspended animation (I assume) before finally getting shunted out into reality (such as it is) to get a job and a car. I’m not sure why your character took this long to do those things, but that’s where you come in.

A great deal of setup in Dryft City Kyngs is hilariously randomized. Your avatar’s name is created by gluing together three random syllables, often resulting in bizarre monikers. the company you work for is selected from a mash of random, meaningless, market-friendly-ish words. Even your job interview is an automatic discussion made from random questions and answers.

It sets up a bizarre and forgivingly loose framework. “Loose” is one of the descriptors I’d apply to Dryft City Kyngs. Because of all its complicated randomization, nothing feels solid. Nothing feels important. And that feels amazing.

When you wake up in the morning, it’s time to go to work. You jog over to the building, check your workstation, and start chipping away at your pile, completing the small selection of tasks for the day. I don’t think you have to do your job. I’m not sure there’s a way to be fired, nor have I been reprimanded by the boss or co-workers. However, I also didn’t push very hard because I legitimately enjoyed going to work in Dryft City Kyngs.

The things you do at work are as bizarrely depicted as most everything in the game. Tasks include mashing buttons to write a program, creating a pointless logo, or performing the all-important coffee run. It’s a distressingly insightful look at the conformity of office culture. Doing your job gets you paid, which is only somewhat important early in the game. The best way to earn money is just to complete the races.

Your car starts off with low stats, but gradually, you earn chips that you can spend to upgrade its stats. These come hard and fast in the beginning. If you put your chips into speed and acceleration and learn how to time your nitro boosts, then the races are inconsequentially easy to win. You can complete three of them in a day, which pays substantially more than your job. You can also complete quests for your “friends,” which also doesn’t pay well, but I enjoy pretending to be popular and reliable.

The story has you attempting to defeat the Dryft Lords so you can confront the Dryft Kyng and take their crown. You may find this surprising, but you don’t actually need to beat the Lords in a race. They each have challenges, which usually involve driving, but not actually racing. Drifting, for that matter, is optional, though maybe “dryft” isn’t actually a stylization and isn’t related to the manipulation of traction and momentum.

You go from chapter to chapter, tracking down a Dryft Lord, then getting them to hand over the challenge. It’s a breezy game. By default, there’s an objective pointer that you can always follow, which makes the actual exploration aspect of the game somewhat pointless. On the other hand, the fact that the objectives are sometimes unclear, it’s almost necessary.

The problem there is that Dryft City Kyngs doesn’t really require much connection. There’s a lot there that you don’t need to do, and that means that, for the most part, you can just follow the objective marker to the end credits. You’d have to be a very boring person to do that, but I also feel that a certain amount of friction is necessary to create a compelling experience. Dryft City Kyngs has very little resistance. Having content is fine, but if it isn’t meaningful, then neither is the experience.

The lack of connection could be a massive problem, but because Dryft City Kyngs is laid back about most things, it never becomes a chore. The driving physics are so enjoyable that completing side challenges or repeating the same few tracks repeatedly is slow to feel mundane. Even bouncing around the city, deflecting off buildings, and running over pedestrians so hard they combust is a joy. Your pockets are endlessly deep, so visiting a store and buying a bunch of everything ensures you can complete sidequests easily.

It also makes up for many of its shortcomings with its boundless personality. Your job feels pointless, but it does so well in depicting the vapidity of office culture that it’s almost the best part of the game. If you don’t refill your health or energy meters, your character will lose consciousness and be taken to the hospital. You’re charged a fee, but you can continually ask to have it put on your “tab,” then just never pay it in a sly way that deliberately undermines what would be an annoying penalty for forgetting to eat.

This is complemented by an art style that looks like it was torn from a ‘90s teenager’s notebook. It’s like the whole game was drawn by the last remaining illustrator of POGs. It’s drawn with obnoxious colors and features characters that are as fascinating as they are ugly. It speaks to me.

As much as I enjoyed Dryft City Kyngs, I do wish certain elements got better attention, and everything fit together better. If everything was that well executed, it would be perfect. If the side-questing and life simulator facets were more meaningful, it would be divine. However, that’s ignoring the fact that it attempts so much already and has a lot of intricacies for a title developed by a small team.

So, what we got is the closest thing to the DS/GBA version of The Urbz since the DS/GBA version of The Urbz. I mean that as a very flattering compliment.

The intentionally lackadaisical attitude and random dialogue elements was more than enough to keep me glued. The off-kilter world and solid dialogue heightened the experience. And the fact that I want more from Dryft City Kyngs is proof enough that it’s worth playing. It’s unique and joyful, effortlessly combining the weird with the mundane.

_{[This review is based on a retail build of the game provided by the publisher.]}