Shiftbolt

Shiftbolt is a car-and-robot brawler for one or two players, set in a compact city of skyscrapers seen from above. Every machine is a car until you press Shift, and then it folds into a chunky robot in under a second: the hood becomes the chest, the doors the forearms, the wheels the shoulders and shins. Shift again to fold back into a car and drive off.

Pick from eight machines on the arcade select screen. Redline, a red coupe with an Arc Blaster. Bulwark, an armoured pickup with homing Swarm Pods. Cinder, a van with a Torch Jet flamethrower. Knuckle, a 4x4 with a Pile Hammer. Skyhook, a wedge supercar that flies on heel jets. Halo, a hover car with no wheels that flies as a robot and fires a Beam Lance. Tusk, a tow truck with a Scatter Cannon. Zip, a dune buggy whose Shock Coil lightning jumps between targets.

Every machine has a special move that charges as you deal damage: Overdrive, Missile Storm, Firestorm, Quake, Strafe Run, Sky Lance, Bulldoze and Tesla Field. Every robot can kick. A kick launches enemy robots down the street, and kicking a car sends its driver flying out of the door.

The Rustmob attacks in waves of rammer cars, rifle robots, hulking box-truck brutes, and every fifth wave their boss, Junkmaw, a truck the size of a building that shifts into a giant robot. Clear a wave and everyone is repaired. Spare sparks are the team's shared respawns.

The city is alive: crowds on the sidewalks who scatter when the fighting starts, traffic in the lanes, fire engines that come out to burning wrecks, and police who fight the Rustmob beside you. Cause too much damage, though, and the cops turn on you: cruisers chase you down and shift into robot cops.

Play alone or with a friend in split screen on one keyboard, with two gamepads, or with a keyboard and a gamepad. One player can use touch controls on a phone. The driving uses the same car physics and the same camera as Concrete Crown and Dead Axle: grip, drifts, handbrake turns, nitro and real crash impulses.