The player takes the role of Penelope as she moves to different galaxies to find a new husband—by racing different characters! Each galaxy in the game consists of a three-level challenge by simply introducing a new mechanic, participating in a race, and then racing the world's boss.
This Vehicular Combat Racing Game first spent some time in Steam Early Access, and was officially released for PC on May 29th, 2015. It later received an Updated Re-release The Next Penelope: Race to Odysseus, and was ported to Nintendo Switch on December 21st, 2017.
Tropes present in this game:
- Advancing Boss of Doom: There's a level that's entirely about escaping a worm-like black mass that's chasing after you with suprising speed.
- Big Bad: Poseidon takes on this role here, as he and his Cyclopii children take advantage of Odysseus' absence to beset his kingdom of Ithaca, thus forcing Penelope to embark on her search.
- Bonus Dungeon: A few bonus races are available after you have beaten the campaign.
- Cast From Hitpoints: Energy both represents the durability of Penelope's craft, and is used to deploy the various abilities, meaning that there is a constant trade-off.
- Competitive Multiplayer: There's a local multiplayer mode designed for four racers (although AI can replace the missing players). Amusingly, it's portrayed as a contest held between Penelope's suitors for the right to win her hand.
- Deflector Shields: Exaggerated - the shield here outright converts the incoming projectiles into coins.
- Eyepatch of Power: Penelope is missing an eye, and has it bandaged over.
- Gang Up on the Human: The opponents will nearly always prefer attacking Penelope to duelling amongst each other.
- Life Drain: There are mines which will absorb energy from your opponents and transfer it to Penelope's craft.
- Perspective Flip: This a take on The Odyssey that focuses on the perspective of Penelope, who is paid little attention to in the source material, and makes her into a much more proactive character in general.
- Yet another flip occurs if you choose to play the local 4-player mode, since it portrayed as the battle between Penelope's suitors for her hand.
- Ramming Always Works: As long as it is done during boost mode, ramming will immediately shatter the hapless opponents caught in its way.
- Recycled In Space: The game does this quite literally with both the Odysseus myth, and many other aspects of the Greek mythology.
- Teleport Spam: There's a teleportation ability. It'll even briefly freeze time when deployed, so that you can decide where exactly you want to redeploy without the fear of immediately colliding with a rival that moved away while you were casting.
- Unexpected Shmup Level: While most of the game is a top-down racer where finishing first takes precedence over everything else, and shooting is often completely unnecessary, many of the battles are much more traditional schmup encounters.
