A new independently developed spiritual successor to Sega Rally Championship is now available to wishlist on Steam. Don’t get too excited though. I say “Wishlist” because the game is not available to purchase, pre-order, or download right now, at least from Steam anyway. Let me explain.
Some of you may remember this game as a demo in last year’s Sonic Amateur Games Expo (SAGE ’22), where it is is still available to download and play on PC right now. It was designed to be a modern, ultra realistic looking tribute to Sega Rally Championship, which plays almost exactly like the original game. However, the developer, Bansai Rosso, isn’t looking to release this as just a completely original game meant to invoke memories of Sega Rally. They also state on the Steam page itself that they are making this as a proof-of-concept to pitch to Sega. The game is still early in development, so it is pretty clear that they may not be sure what exactly they want to do with this game. Whether they get to work with Sega or not, the game features the same reproductions of real cars from Toyota and Lancia featured in Sega Rally, and it’s likely those will need to be changed soon if an agreement cannot be reached with those motor companies.
Regardless, having a Steam page means the game can be wishlisted, which not only helps motivate the developers, but also sends a message to Valve, the company running Steam, that people are paying attention to the game. This aids in convincing them to highlight the game on Steam’s main page when an announcement or release date is made. If this game looks fun to you and you have a Steam account, go ahead and wishlist the game. It does not guarantee the game will release or that it will release sooner, but it doesn’t hurt. Of course, the Steam page kindly asked people to help spread the word, so that’s what I’m doing now. On behalf of SegaBits, I wish Bansai Rosso the best of luck with development and with pitching the title to Sega. You can also check out the official Over Jump Rally linktree page for an easy hub linking to the developer’s sites, including their X Twitter, Discord, and YouTube, and perhaps you could wish them luck yourself as well.
Make an easy left to the comments section to tell us what you think of this game, maybe.
Some of you may recall Hunter Girls, a new Genesis/Mega-Drive game being developed by PCSD Games, which launched a Kickstarter campaign to fund the game’s development. On July 30th, 2023, their Kickstarter campaign was launched and then was successfully funded on August 29th. Despite the fact that the game has completed development and cartridges have been manufactured, PCSD Games has been forced to cancel shipment of all Kickstarter rewards due to an unanticipated issue with the firm that managed their Kickstarter campaign, Meridian 4. Fortunately, PSCD Games is currently assisting fans in obtaining refunds from Meridian 4 and will instead sell the game cartridges through their own website.
