Quadrilateral Cowboy
A CYBERPUNK HEIST ADVENTURE US$ . | PC | blendogames.com/qc
SETTING UP A good workspace is crucial in Quadrilateral Cowboy. In front of you, you’ll place your laptop — constructed by you — a keyboard and screen to display a commandline interface, and it’s your most prized piece of equipment, used for hacking into external networks and to control various amazing tools. To the side, you’ll place your CCTV unit.
One feed might be from your four-legged remote bot that’s small enough to get under pipes and through vents. You might tell it GO 150; TURN 90; GO 50, commands that tell it to move forward, turn to the right and move on again. en you’ll hammer out DATAJACK 0 to activate a node on the wall, which might switch o laser elds or open a window. Another video feed could be from your Auto Case, a briefcase that you set on the oor and which transforms into a gun.
But you won’t be shooting a human target. is isn’t that kind of game. e Auto Case is all about hitting buttons from afar with FIRE. e object of Quadrilateral Cowboy is to perform a series of simulated heists from your company’s studio, formulating and practising elaborate raids on surreal banks, funiculars, luxury apartments, space stations and moving trucks, before getting out again, preferably without setting o alarms. e what and the why of a heist isn’t important; it’s the how, since this is essentially a puzzle game.
As you’re steadily granted more tools, learning what they do is a thrill. You initially fumble around, resorting to typing HELP into the deck, reading sticky notes attached to it, and opening the in-game manual until, eventually, you master them.
Quadrilateral Cowboy takes place in entirely discrete locations, but it feels like it’s part of a wider world. e characters are blocky and the environments simple, but details are obsessed over. is is a game of incidentals, where every book in every bookcase has a di erent title; every functioning object has a name and has warning stickers and operating notes; every drawer opens and every tap and toilet ows. Yet it also feels arti cial. You’re aware you’re exploring sets, painstakingly composed so they give you a cleanly presented puzzle to solve, comprising alarm systems, sightlines between windows for your Auto Case and vent systems to send your Weevil into.
ere’s also an a ecting story going on of a hacker and her two friends establishing a company building up their tech and taking on jobs. Between levels, we experience vignettes of their lives, visiting their homes and playing badminton with them. e ner points are told through details, in contracts and certicates, with time shown through a plant steadily growing and seasonal decorations in the o ce.
With so much going on, all of it so carefully realised, something had to give. Quadrilateral Cowboy isn’t long, and by the end of its 11 levels, you’ll feel you’ve only scratched the surface of the challenges your many tools and abilities can provide.
Your friends’ best times are there to goad you into executing a better plan faster. And Blendo Games’ ambitions seem to be on another plane. Quadrilateral Cowboy comes with a guide to modding, so perhaps its potential will be fully realised by its players. For a game so preoccupied with the magic of its making, that’s actually pretty tting.