Fastival

[h1] Hardcore racing game for kiddos. 4 characters and 4 karts to choose from and 3 tracks in total. Levels are somewhat good, controls are ok except no drifting. A few power ups to pick up and circus themed scenery to admire. [/h1]

This is yet another student project, one of literally thousands self-published on Steam Direct. It's from SMU Guildhall in the USA. This is an academic exercise, not a professional game. While it has more quality than most amateur games, it's not a complete gaming experience. Student projects have limited value for gamers because they're not fully developed games, just barely functional demos that show the students progress. Steam is not a place for for-profit colleges to dump student homework assignments... and having thousands of these is not good for gamers. The students made a Mario Kart ripoff but didn't include multiplayer. The idea is you take on cartoony characters in bumper cars and race around carnival themed tracks... but of course, while this could have been a A+ tier game if made professionally, this is a homework assignment. So there's few maps, few characters, zero polish, and zero playtesting. If there was proper playtesting they would have fixed the janky, laggy, and unresponsive controls. Alas, what could have been isn't, and won't be. This looks a lot like it was designed for consoles, but released on Steam instead by mistake. While this is on PC, it has…

Short, sweet, and free. Supports local multiplayer with controller support. reminds me of the golden age of kart racing games; like Crash Team Racing, Re-Volt, and Mario Kart. Only downside is the lack of content. Would recommend for free, would pay for a more complete sequel.

I will be fair, the game was OK. Had a bit of fun, but the issue is that it's hard to control at some points and items and drifting will just eat up the input. It's charming that it's simple I guess. The courses are fine, but the music and sound effects are really limited and pretty bad by volume. When you boost, there's a long cool down, so you can't just drift in many parts of the map or you will be slower than without drift. Characters is one nice person in costumes based on color and animal based on carnivals. I honestly had a little fun, but most of it was frustration and stress by how good the AI is and how bad the items were. Never got hit by any items and could only hit with Pie, since the blue balls are not good when it comes to hills and slopes. Overall, it was an OK experience. Was worth the price and I don't mind it for them knowing how OK the game is. I won't give it good recommendation, but not bad one either.

LAME tbh kids game much

The visuals are simply charming. Even within the menus, I've stumbled upon many little design details that show a lot of love went into them. The maps look fun and are begging to be explored... if only the game would let you properly enjoy them. The biggest letdown? The complete lack of multiplayer. In a game that feels like it was made for co-op chaos the absence of any multiplayer functionality is very confusing. You're just made to awkwardly fumble through what could’ve been a great shared experience. And then there’s the keyboard controls. They’re so bad, it’s almost impressive. Seemingly designed by someone who’s never touched a keyboard before. Want to remap them? Nope, not possible. Fastival has all the ingredients for something special: cute graphics, fun maps, and a vibe that screams “good times.” Sadly, I don't think it will evet get any updates to fix these issues.