Bad Thoughts

Arcade games promote fun over realism, which why they can feature such wild gameplay mechanics and ludicrous stories. This is why they have the potential to keep you playing for hours on end, especially if they also allow you to attain high scores or improve your times. On the other hand, it can be rather difficult to design a working set of gameplay mechanics that is both challenging and fun at the same time.

Bad Thoughts is a retro arcade runner in which you have a very simple purpose: Punch as many people as you can and get to the end of every level. It doesn’t sound very difficult, but the challenge is definitely there, especially after the first couple of levels when things get a lot faster and difficult to deal with. There are items and pets that can be purchased, which keep the experience fresh.

Your character is a man who cannot seem to stop himself from punching people as he is running through the streets. Thankfully, by doing so he receives gold and points, which can then be used to purchase items and pets that help him deal more damage. Besides punching, you also have to dodge various vehicles that cannot be knocked out, and the whole adventure gets much more fast-paced as you progress.

As mentioned before, the gold you receive can be used in the breaks between levels to buy various items that allow you to deal even more damage. On top of that, you can also get pets that feature special attacks and can get you out of hairy situations. Speaking of which, boss fights are a thing as well, and you can also search for secret levels and put some real effort into the game.

Lastly, the graphics are worth a mention as well, because although they are designed to look as retro as possible, they actually manage to create a fairly engaging atmosphere. It’s a shame that the levels are a bit too repetitive most of the time, but considering for how long you have to run, it would have been tough to create enough artwork to fill them.

In the end, Bad Thoughts is actually a very polished indie game, even if it doesn’t look like that at first. There is a lot of content waiting for you thanks to the fifty levels included, not to mention the fact that you can combine items and pets to get a different experience with every playthrough.