Junkdogs is a Cowboy Bebop inspired IGMC 2018 entry by sudobeats where you are part of a team of space scavengers that gets on the wrong side of the law. Wanting to get the bounty off their heads, Joe scavenges through an abandoned ship but ends up getting the gang on the wrong side of the wrong side of the law.

While I’m not too into the story, I’m into the game’s atmosphere. Even with a criminal organization chasing after you, there’s this laid-back mood to it all that that gives off this tone that this is just another day of being a space outlaw. This is largely enforced by the game’s original soundtrack, which is a mix of jazz and chill beats to study to that I really got into. The soundtrack, for me, is what makes the game. It made the game’s writing more engaging than it really was with the mood it brings and sets the tone of the game quite nicely. While I personally think the battle theme could be more energetic, the soundtrack is overall a defining part of Junkdogs.

The game is split up into a big adventure segment and a battle segment. The adventure game part has Joe checking around the abandoned spaceship. On top of the usual adventure game puzzle stuff found in adventure RPG Maker games, you can also smash crates to get items for the upcoming battles and hunt down CDs to play the game’s soundtrack, which also includes music that doesn’t play in the game proper for a nice bonus, giving incentive to poke around a bit more.

After you accidentally piss off the local crime syndicate, you’re thrown into the seat of your scouting ship and head into battle. The battle system is your standard turn-based RPG stuff, but framed around spaceship battles. Skills defy the standard in that they’re limited use, with only the combat ones being replenishable. To be honest, the battles didn’t feel engaging to me, but this is likely a result of having only one playable character, which typically closes off variety in what you can do. Like, maybe one of the other characters could have flown in to back Joe up in the second phase of the fighting and have the Arc Cannon as a unique aspect of their ship instead of Joe just suddenly remembering he has it. Personally, I feel that while the game was generally good at presentation, it falters with the battles. It doesn’t fully capture the “cool space battles” image it tries to go for, with its plain scrolling background and mostly simple animations.

On the note of presentation, Junkdogs uses assets from the POP collection of RPG Maker assets for most of the game. The packs are actually geared more toward horror games and are almost always used for that purpose, but I think Junkdogs succeeds in putting them toward a different direction, which I admire.

Junkdogs is an alright game, though it’s one that knows what direction it’s going. While the battles could have been better, I think the demo acts as a good showcase of what a full version of the game would be like and the effort put into the soundtrack indicates a strong direction, to me. It’s definitely an entry that carries itself with confidence.