Quibble

I got a surprising amount to say about this game, which is funny, cause it’s not what I’d expect.

To start, this is a remake of an ancient game from 2004 that is still up on Newgrounds, and you can play it now. It hasn’t changed very much in the past 20 years.

Quibble

Quibble Race is a horse racing simulator, with some REALLY dark twists. You bet on Quibbles, using their previous wins and losses as information about their stats, and then let ‘em rip. Quibbles have speed stats, and clumsiness stats. If they’re too clumsy, they’ll trip all the time, which is DEVESTATING. It’s not JUST horse races though, as you have several buttons at your disposal between each race.

Quibble

You’ve got the Infobot, which can tell you the stats of one quibble a day for a fee, very useful. You’ve got the loan shark, which I didn’t use once. You’ve got the ability to sponsor a Quibble, where you’ll make money each time they win. You’ve also got the ability to train those quibbles, which can be useful, but Quibbles retire randomly, so your hard work might not pay off. And then you have the back alley.

Quibble

This cute guy can directly interact with races. You can dope quibbles, place trash in their path, injur them, make them go WILD, just wanting to constantly attack other quibbles, poison to straight up fucking kill them, or protect a quibble, in which case all other effects are stopped, and if another person is trying to effect that Quibble, they’ll face a fine. This ALSO blocks positive effects, like doping, so two betters trying to help the same quibble can cancel each other out. It can be very useful to defend though, because nothing is worse than you betting on a long shot Quibble, doping it up, and having it near the end only to watch it fucking die in front of you, alongside all your winnings.

Quibble

I should also note that this game fits nicely into the greater UFOSoft canon. You’ve got a lot of playable characters. Pilot, of course. Alpha makes her return. You’ve also got the alien from Onion Delivery, Brazz from Hyper Contendor, and this girl, Val. Val is a character from a cancelled UFO Soft cyberpunk RPG. Ah, what could have been.

Quibble Race is really just a horse racing sim at its core. You have a number of rounds, and you bet money in each of those. Whoever has the most at the end wins. It’s that simple. It’s good for what it is, but like… I’ll be real. I don’t give a shit about horse racing. At all. It’s not interesting, and it’s not very fun. But the game is still GOOD, it accomplishes what it wants to. I just dunno why it would ever strive to be that. It was alright to power through a victory once, but I’d never want to go back to it.

Also, some quick lore at the end. From this point on, something… troubling starts happening in the credits. For the final four games, no one is credited, except for the Nemurus, and Spinzer. Every designer, developer, coder, artist, musician, they are only given initials. We know who they are, because we know their names, but they aren’t credited. This is a very real unfortunate thing that happened, trying to stop people from having credits so that they wouldn’t be poached. It’s disgusting behavior, and it did not sit well with the people actually making these games. But don’t worry, Ian Spinzer, the guy who’s only job is to yell at the workers, is still credited! This shit sucks.

6/10