Tape to Tape is a hockey roguelite that mixes slick play with fun jokes

polygon.com:

Despite being Canadian, I’d never fallen in love with our national sport until recently. It took a surprising source to get me fascinated with the ins and outs of hockey: a game called Tape to Tape, which is about a disgraced golfer looking to redeem his sins by assembling a superteam of ice-skating athletes. Throw in wild skill upgrades and zany artifacts, teams of mountaineers rappelling across the ice, and sinister referees, and hell yeah — this is a version of hockey that I’m here for.

Tape to Tape is a roguelite that entered early access on May 3. While the game is still being tweaked and updated, the core is solid. There are two elements to the game, the first of which is the actual hockey. Playing a match in Tape to Tape is slick, although the keyboard and mouse setup is best described as functional. If you want to really enjoy the game, playing with a controller works better.

There are all of the things you’d expect from an arcade hockey game — passing to your forward, face-offs on the ice, desperate longshots, clever passes, and hype goals. The puck physics are excellent; the puck ricochets off sticks and bounces off unlucky players. It’s the first time I’ve ever understood why hockey is so dang fun. Matches in Tape to Tape are fast, aggressive, and full of opportunities that I can exploit. Sometimes I can snag the puck with some clever skating work, and other times I can take the puck by force with a brutal check.

The tensest parts of Tape to Tape come when players cluster around one of the goalies, and the puck bounces from stick to stick. One wrong move and the puck might ricochet into your net, leading to a devastating defeat. It’s rare that I’m afforded the time to leisurely line up a shot; it’s more