While Scrappage has the potential to become the next Vampire Survivors; however, it is unlikely to live up to its full potential due to a limited marketing budget and lack of a tangible Twitch and social media presence.
Singleplayer.
Scrappage relies heavily on procedural generation, with every map and boss NPC being unique no matter how many times you play Scrappage.
With nine possible map biomes and hundreds of functionally and aesthetically unique body parts, you quite literally do not know what or where you will be fighting next.
One of my favourite boss NPCs was wearing a mickey mouse head and was spotting a rapid-fire boxing glove.
A downside of procedural generation is that every map looks bad due to random unity store assets being placed randomly on whatever terrain the biome calls for.
In particular, the hell-like biome is very poorly done and mixes graveyard props and what appears to be volcano terrain; upon seeing it for the first time, my thoughts were “Unity Asset Store Fodder”.
Scrappage allows players to mix and match body parts in seven categories, allowing for some truly unique appearances; however, the fun does not stop there, with each body part offering both passive and active abilities.
In a recent playthrough, I was able to loot a pair of tank tread trousers from a defeated boss, allowing my character to turn into a heavily armoured tank class, which, when coupled with my upgraded weapon and shield, allowed me to defeat the final boss in less than 2.5 seconds, something which the developer is looking into, as while he wants players to feel like a powerful action hero, no build should allow players to basically “click to win” any encounter.
If procedural generation is the foundation of Scrappage, then RNG is the ground floor, with almost every aspect of gameplay dictated by RNG, including but not limited to:
While a heavy reliance on RNG ensures that no two runs are the same, it can result in scenarios where players are greatly under/overpowered for the task. I have personally faced easy encounters that are much easier than elite encounters because of this, and I feel Scrappage would be a better game with a little less RNG and more structured content, at least during the early stages of each run.
Scrappage is almost entirely comprised of Unity Store Assets. While that will be off-putting to some, with few exceptions (hell biome and robot mobs), most assets work well together.
While you will often encounter a feeling of deja-vu, having most likely seen the same assets in many other games, Scrappage is hardly the type of game you play to become immersed in, so it doesn’t distract from the gameplay, which, when it works correctly is exceptional.
Due to the massive variety of body parts, weapons and items available to the player, Scrappage is essentially impossible to balance for a solo developer. There is no reasonable way for him to deal with this issue without making harder encounters unwinnable for those with less optimal builds.
In a recent playthrough, I was able to create a build that allowed me to kill bosses in less than 1 second and complete the final mission in 2.5 seconds; it definitely is not working as intended, but very difficult to fix due to the huge amount of overlap between item, weapon, and body part passive and active effects.
Solo developers have to wear various hats, from programming to customer support, and something has to give, and that something, in the case of Scrappage, was quality assurance, with the title launching with no less than three game-breaking/run-ending bugs resulting in lost progress.
However, Scrappage is neither a cash grab nor the product of a developer with no pride in his work. Geekspree responds positively to even negative feedback and has already addressed every issue I and others have encountered promptly and courteously.
In short, Scrappage is likely to have many other gremlins in the pipes, and anyone who purchases it now would do well to remember the words of Jesus in Matthew 7:12.
Scrappage allows players to unlock various perks as they level up, making even failed runs rewarding; unfortunately, these perks are very easy to obtain and are very powerful; as a result, the average gamer will likely complete the game with all perks unlocked in less than 3 hours.
Scrappage is mindless fun in the same way that Vampire Survivors is mindless fun, and I was honestly disappointed when it was all over.
I cannot replay RNG/procedurally generated titles endlessly, as once there is nothing more to unlock or achieve, such games hold little interest. I would love to see Geekspree revisit Scrappage one day and make the post-game more rewarding, similar to Vampire Survivors, where beating the game is only the beginning, and players have many rewards left to unlock even after the final boss is defeated.
Scrappage is a action video game developed and published by Geekspree, it was released on 25 February 2023 and retails for $3.99.
Scrappage is available exclusively on PC.
On average Scrappage takes between 3 and 4 hours to complete.
Estimated completion times are derived from various sources and may vary based on the skill level of each player.
The following peripherals are officially supported:
Scrappage is unrated and contains:
Scrappage is a great bit of fun for a relatively low price.
As a huge fan of Vampire Survivors, I fully recommend it for those who “want more of the same, just a little different” and don’t mind filing balance and bug reports with the developer, as while Scrappage is loads of fun, it is still very buggy and game-breaking balance and performance issues crop up fairly regularly due to Scrappage’s extreme reliance on procedural generation and RNG.
