Hover: Revolt of Gamers is a 3D platforming parkour based action adventure game that can be played in 1st or 3rd person, developed by Midgar Studio and Fusty Game, and published by Playdius and Plug In Digital. Inspired by games like Jet Set Radio and Mirror's Edge, it was released on Steam on May 31st, 2017, and on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch the following year.
On a faraway planet, there exists a city called ECP17, otherwise known as Hover City. Everyone lived peaceful lives, until the Great Admin of the city seized the reins, creating a cruel dictatorship where fun and entertainment are banished and illegal. With no way to contact the Galactic Union, people are beginning to lose hope.
Enter the Gamers, a group of rebels who fight against the Great Admin’s rule, with their own high tech gear, created for running, jumping, and best of all, playing. Their mission is to help citizens, sabotage Anti-Leisure Propaganda, and most of all to get help from the Galactic Union to stop the tyrannical rule!
The game features both single and multiplayer functions, which can be switched either on or off to play the adventure, along with Crossplay and controller support.
This game provides examples of:
- Absurdly Spacious Sewer: The sewer level that houses The Gamer's HQ is insanely massive.
- Acrofatic: Despite having a noticeable waistline, The Great Admin is still able to use his suit and perform parkour with the rest of them.
- Amazing Technicolor World: The whole world is full of vivid colors.
- Clones Are People, Too: One of the major themes of the game. All player characters are clones based off of DNA-kits of existing characters, Otello's side quests reveal he's a clone of a scientist named Oto, and in the normal ending of the game, The Great Admin abuses cloning technology to ensure even if he's imprisoned and loses control of Hover City, like-minded clones will ensure his anti-leisure agenda stays in place.
- Democracy Is Flawed:. The normal ending of the game has the Gamers succeed in contacting the Galactic Union and having The Great Admin imprisoned and removed from power...only for his clone with the exact same agenda to be voted in by the ignorant populace and endorsed by like-minded clones.
- Fun-Hating Villain: The Great Admin big time. The conflict is caused by The Great Admin making all forms of entertainment illegal, and is only focused on business, productivity and promoting wasteful consumerism.
- He Knows About Timed Hits: Otello in the tutorial section (which is of the Anon Gamer escaping captivity in the factory they were created in) says that some other people have cleared the section in 35 seconds, and there's an achievement for pulling this off too by finding a shortcut early in the level.
- Hover Skates: Your main method of transportation, after completing the tutorial. Not only does it help you go fast and jump high, it also looks cool!
- In-Universe Game Clock: This game has a day-night cycle.
- La Résistance: While there have been multiple failed resistance movements in the game's backstory, the two active resistance groups are The Gamers: The more peaceful faction the player's part of that's focused on civil disobedience, and The Breakers: The more aggressive faction who vandalize and destroy things in protest to The Great Admin's rule.
- Le Parkour: The premise of the entire game. You can run, you can jump, you can jump on buildings, you can do flips, you can grind, you can slide down buildings to look cool ect ect.
- Nobody Can Die: There's no health, lives, death, or even much violence in this game beyond chasing and bumping into people which just disorients them at worst. Your stamina bar just measures how much parkour you can do before having to recharge, which can be done on the spot or refilled by tricks. The worst that can happen is being captured by securiboxes or E-Cops, which just results in being sent to a containment pod or or a prison that can be escaped from easily.
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Spiritual Successor: To Jet Set Radio, with influences from Mirror's Edge as confirmed by the dev team. Furthering this is the inclusion of 2 original songs by Hideki Naganuma, who provided music for Jet Set Radio. - Wide-Open Sandbox: The city of ECP17 is fully open-world and completely free to explore from the get-go, with access to different districts requiring the player to collect colored keys.
