Fix Fox on paper may look like a throwback to retro games from the 80s or 90s, but the way the game starts by showing some facts on-screen about the universe in which the game is set while your main character floats through the space one can tell its quite different from retro games despite having the same kind of art style. Fix Fox is developed by Rendlike studious and published by the publisher Joystick Ventures the game was released on 31st March 2022 on PC via Steam.

Story & Narrative

The game starts with your main character Vix floating in space and unraveling the facts about humans in the universe. Vix is a human-fox hybrid who works for an organization called SPACR(Space Pioneer Astronics Circuit Repair) and your buddy Tin and travel across planets to fix things and take assignments and explore every different biome. Vix is not the best when it comes to repairing things and is certainly not respected by her co-workers but her bot friend Tin always cheers her up and is designed to protect her and sometimes Tin can be overprotective. FixFox tells its narrative through dream tape which unravels some things about the past of the universe. Fix Fox does not have a groundbreaking narrative but the way the story is presented and sometimes takes some mature themes through conversations and lovely background music makes it worth your while,

GAMEPLAY & MECHANICS

Most of the time FixFox’s gameplay mechanics rely on repairing and fixing broken machines using things like Spatula, banana metal scrap, and bandages. But to use an object to repair machines, one must need to identify its property via an Oracle bot and then use the tools properly to repair a machine. A Scooter known as a speeder is also given to the player for the convenience of fast traversal across planets a drone is also given to the player to pick up heavy targets which may act as an obstacle during your journey. All 4 different biomes present the player with a good amount of exploration with rewards but collecting too many rewards can result in space pirates finding you which in the end results in getting some of the collections stolen by the pirates. Fix Fox is meant to be a relaxing game but at times it can feel like a real chore when the objectives given to you are not explained clearly and figuring out them can get frustrating.

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Fix Fox also has another weird mechanic in which order to repair a machine you have to identify its property via the oracle bot and sometimes the distance between the oracle bot and the machine to be repaired is long so to use a tool it can get tedious to go to oracle bot to identify its property when the player can clearly tell whether a tool can or cannot be used for repairing a particular broken part of the machine. You also need to keep your tool kit full. Because one can’t complete its entire playthrough by using a single tool kit, for example, a coin used for opening the nuts of a broken machine can get rusty after quite some time and cannot be used again after some time to repair the machine.

SOUND, GRAPHICS & PERFORMANCE

Fix Fox is trying to appeal to both younger audiences through its cute art style and to adult audiences through its some mature-themed storytelling. It looks like a classic retro game paying homage to the 90s era but also telling its ambitious storyline through some great soundtrack.
Fix Fox also excels in its audio design by giving satisfying audio to the players while repairing of the machine is being done. FixFox features a two style text UI that is Dyslexic and Pixelated which is a welcome change for the text appearing on the scene as though most of the playtime in the game you are reading conversations and it seems like a nice quality of life allowing players to choose between the style of the text they prefer the most. Since FixFox has pixelated graphics it is not hard to run and PCs with an integrated GPU shouldn’t have that hard of a time but still for an indie game with only one developer working I have to say the game is quite polished and runs absolutely fine with zero crashes and without any game-breaking bugs which can affect your story progress.

Mojo/Experience/Anecdotes

I had a fun time while playing Fix Fox interacting with my friends Tin on my journey through space and also repairing some broken ships in space.

Although there were some moments in the game where I felt frustrated with how little explanation about objectives in the game was given. But there was nothing more satisfying than having soup at the end of the day and going to sleep using a bedroll. Overall Fix Fox is supposed to be a relaxing game targeted at all age groups but its lack of explanation of objectives can sometimes make the experience an unpleasant one. Fix Fox on average can take 10-12 hours for players to complete and if you are a completionist it can take up to 15 hours. The game is right now available only on PC via Steam and is priced at 459 INR which honestly is completely fair with the amount of story content and side activities the game offers.

Real Talk

If you want a relaxing sci-fi game with melodic music then FixFox is a great option at 459 INR. I would like to FixFox a solid 8/10.

FINAL RATING: RECOMMENDED