There is something magical about a sports game that understands the difference between taking a sport seriously and taking itself seriously. Hockey is already a wonderfully chaotic spectacle, with blistering shots, bone-rattling body checks and enough frantic action to make even the most composed spectator grip their seat. Now imagine taking that intensity, adding a roguelite progression system, a collection of wonderfully peculiar opponents and the occasional questionable deal with a referee, then seeing what happens when everything goes spectacularly wrong. Welcome to Tape to Tape, developed by Excellent Rectangle, a game that takes the familiar ingredients of ice hockey and turns them into an outrageous sporting adventure where no two campaigns need to follow the same path.
At the centre of the action is Angus McShaggy, whose mission to restore hockey to its former glory provides the excuse for a journey through a world populated by strange characters, eccentric teams and increasingly ridiculous challenges. This is not a conventional season where you play through a predictable fixture list, gradually improve your squad and eventually lift a trophy. Instead, every campaign is a run at survival, with defeats bringing your current adventure to an end and victories opening the door to new opportunities. Recruit players, improve your team’s abilities, discover powerful combinations and hope that the next opponent does not have something particularly unpleasant up their sleeve.
The genius of Tape to Tape is that it does not simply attach a roguelite progression system to an ordinary sports game and call it a day. Its individual matches are designed around fast, physical arcade hockey, while the decisions made between games shape the team you take into battle. That creates a compelling relationship between what happens on the ice and the strategic choices made away from it. You are not just trying to win the next match; you are building a team capable of surviving whatever the game throws at you next.
Gameplay: Fast, Physical and Gloriously Unpredictable
The action on the ice draws inspiration from the golden age of arcade sports games, when hockey was less about replicating every technical detail of the real sport and more about making every minute entertaining. Tape to Tape embraces that philosophy with responsive controls, hard-hitting challenges, quick passing combinations, and opportunities to unleash spectacular shots. The emphasis is on momentum and instinct, rewarding players who recognise an opening and turn it into a scoring chance before the opposition can react.
Passing is central to that experience. One-timers, saucer passes, and dekes give players several ways to break through a defensive line, while good positioning can make the difference between a promising attack and a wasted possession. There is plenty of room for individual moments of brilliance, but the game also encourages players to think about how their team works together. A perfectly timed pass followed by a devastating shot can be far more satisfying than simply charging towards goal and hoping for the best.
Then there are the body checks. Hockey has always had a physical edge, but Tape to Tape gleefully turns that aspect into slapstick entertainment. Opponents can be sent sprawling across the ice, collisions can disrupt carefully planned attacks, and the puck can bounce into unexpected positions just when a match appears to be under control. The physics-driven chaos means that even a seemingly routine passage of play can turn into something completely different within seconds.
That unpredictability is a major part of the appeal. Sports games built around realistic simulation can sometimes become predictable once players master their systems, but Tape to Tape has a different objective. It wants players to feel that they are participating in a living, chaotic contest where quick thinking and a willingness to improvise matter just as much as technical skill. Randomness can occasionally work against you, naturally, but when the chaos creates a spectacular goal or a last-second comeback, it becomes part of the game’s charm rather than an obstacle to enjoyment.
The Roguelite Campaign: Every Match Matters
The campaign structure is where Tape to Tape truly establishes its identity. Rather than following a traditional league format, players travel through a branching series of encounters, choosing their route and deciding which opportunities to pursue. Winning keeps the adventure moving, while losing ends the current run and sends you back to begin again. It is a familiar roguelite principle, but applying it to hockey gives every match an added sense of consequence.
A victory is not merely another result on a league table. It is a step towards strengthening the squad and preparing for tougher challenges. Along the way, players can encounter training facilities, recruit new talent, unlock abilities and meet unusual characters who offer opportunities to improve the team. Choosing one route over another becomes a strategic decision, because an immediate boost might be useful now, while a different reward could prove more valuable several matches later.
This structure gives the campaign a welcome sense of adventure. You are not simply moving from one arena to another, but making decisions about the future of your team while trying to survive an increasingly demanding sequence of opponents. A difficult match becomes more intimidating when you know that losing means sacrificing the progress of the current run. Conversely, overcoming a troublesome rival feels particularly rewarding when it brings you closer to completing the journey.
Persistent unlocks also help soften the frustration of failure. New players, abilities, Relics and Squads give returning players additional possibilities, ensuring that starting again does not necessarily mean returning to precisely the same experience. There is a satisfying sense of discovery in finding a combination that transforms an average squad into a genuine threat. The best roguelite systems encourage experimentation, and Tape to Tape appears well suited to players who enjoy testing different strategies rather than relying on a single supposedly perfect build.
Building the Perfect Team
A great hockey team needs more than a collection of talented individuals. Players must complement one another; weaknesses need to be covered, and the overall squad must be suited to the challenges ahead. Tape to Tape builds on those principles with a roster system that encourages players to recruit unusual characters, manage their benchwarmers and discover synergies between different abilities. The result is a management layer that gives victories and recruitment decisions meaning beyond simply increasing the number of talented players in your lineup.
The different Squads add another dimension to that process. The GM Squad focuses on recruiting Free Agents, giving players an opportunity to build a roster around the talent available to them. The Violence Squad embraces the physical side of hockey, while the Retro Squad returns to older-school physics. The Slapshot Squad, meanwhile, encourages a more specialised approach to scoring. These variations can change how an entire run unfolds, providing distinct reasons to revisit the campaign with a different tactical mindset.
That variety matters because a roguelite can quickly become stale if every run encourages the same decisions. A squad built around physical dominance should ideally demand a different approach from one that focuses on recruiting versatile players or maximising offensive firepower. Discovering those differences and learning how to exploit them gives the campaign an additional layer of depth. It also allows players to develop their own preferences, whether they enjoy overwhelming opponents through brute force or constructing a team that wins through clever combinations.
The ability to improve attributes through training and unlock additional talents adds further flexibility. Players can invest in their strengths, compensate for weaknesses and look for opportunities to make an already effective team even more dangerous. There is also a wonderfully irreverent edge to some of the available options, including the opportunity to visit the Infirmary and sacrifice a player for the good of the team. It is an outrageous idea that fits the game’s cartoon sensibilities perfectly, even if it makes the prospect of being a benchwarmer sound rather less appealing.
Opponents From the Absurd to the Infuriating
Tape to Tape clearly has little interest in presenting a world of ordinary hockey teams. Its opponents include cheating referees, farting princesses and the sinister Golfers, whose very presence suggests that somebody involved in the development process had a particularly strange afternoon. The humour is deliberately ridiculous, and that willingness to abandon sporting convention gives the campaign a personality that a more straightforward hockey game might struggle to match.
However, the unusual opponents are not simply there to provide amusing names and appearances. Each team has its own players, abilities and strategies, encouraging you to learn how it operates and adjust your approach accordingly. A tactic that works beautifully against one opponent might be much less effective against another, making adaptation an important part of progressing through the campaign. This helps prevent the roguelite structure from becoming nothing more than a succession of identical matches played in slightly different arenas.
The stranger abilities and power-ups also give individual encounters the potential to become memorable. The prospect of a goalie summoning a brick wall or a flaming puck sending opponents flying captures the game’s approach perfectly. These ideas take familiar hockey situations and exaggerate them until they become something closer to a cartoon sporting spectacle. It is ridiculous, certainly, but that is precisely the point.
There is a balance to maintain, though. When special abilities become too dominant, the underlying hockey can risk feeling secondary to the spectacle. The most enjoyable encounters are likely to be those where unusual mechanics create fresh tactical problems without completely removing the importance of passing, positioning and timing. Tape to Tape has the ingredients for a wonderfully varied campaign, and its long-term success depends on how well it keeps those elements working together.
Presentation: Cartoon Characters and Ice Cold Style
The visual direction suits the game’s personality beautifully. Its stylised three-dimensional art uses bright colours, expressive character designs and exaggerated animation to give the world a lively cartoon atmosphere. Rather than attempting to reproduce the polished realism of a major licensed hockey simulation, Tape to Tape creates an identity of its own. The arenas and characters are designed to support the game’s irreverent humour, making the occasional ridiculous collision feel entirely at home.
Animation is especially important in a sports game built around physical comedy. Body checks need to look satisfying, saves should communicate urgency, and player movement across the ice must remain readable even when several things happen simultaneously. A clean visual style helps keep the action understandable while allowing the more absurd moments to stand out. When a match turns into a chaotic scramble in front of the goal, clarity is just as valuable as spectacle.
The audio design complements the action with skate sounds, crowd reactions and an energetic soundtrack that helps maintain the pace. Sports games benefit enormously from a convincing sense of atmosphere, and the combination of crowd noise and the sounds of players moving across the ice can make even a relatively simple arena feel alive. The music adds another layer of energy, helping establish a rhythm that suits the fast, arcade-focused gameplay.
The presentation is not trying to win a contest for photorealism, and it does not need to. Tape to Tape succeeds when its visual and audio elements reinforce the feeling that hockey has become a chaotic, colourful sporting cartoon. That distinctive identity helps it stand apart from more conventional sports titles and makes its absurdities feel like a deliberate creative choice rather than a collection of random gimmicks.
Multiplayer: Sharing the Madness
While the campaign can be experienced solo, local couch co-op gives Tape to Tape another appealing dimension. There is something inherently social about arcade sports games, particularly when matches can swing dramatically in the closing moments. Sharing the campaign with another player creates opportunities to celebrate a spectacular goal, argue over a missed pass, or blame a disastrous defensive mistake on absolutely anyone other than yourself.
The game also offers local multiplayer for up to four players in modes including Play Now, Tournament and Shootout. This variety gives players options beyond the main campaign, allowing them to jump into individual matches or arrange more structured competitions with friends. The straightforward arcade approach should make it easier for newcomers to join in, while the deeper roster and ability systems provide room for experienced players to develop their own strategies.
Local multiplayer is particularly valuable for a game with such a strong emphasis on chaotic, unpredictable action. A strange bounce or outrageous special ability becomes even funnier when other people are sharing the experience, and a close match can generate the kind of excitement that keeps everyone asking for another game. For households and groups of friends who enjoy competitive sports gaming, this could be one of Tape to Tape’s most enduring strengths.
The description also mentions experiencing the campaign in local co-op, alongside support for several local multiplayer modes. That gives the game flexibility, whether players want to work together through a longer adventure or settle into a series of competitive matches. The precise longevity of multiplayer will naturally depend on the group involved, but the combination of accessible controls and unpredictable matches is a promising foundation.
Final Verdict: A Brilliantly Bonkers Hockey Adventure
Tape to Tape is a refreshing reminder that sports games do not always need to chase realism to deliver a rewarding experience. Its blend of responsive arcade hockey, roguelite progression and eccentric opponents creates something with a personality all of its own. The matches are designed to be fast and physical, while the campaign gives players a reason to keep experimenting with their squad and exploring different routes to victory.
The roster-building and Squad systems provide welcome strategic depth, making team composition an important part of the adventure rather than a minor distraction between matches. Persistent unlocks give subsequent runs a sense of progression, and the unusual opponents help keep the journey entertaining. Add in the cartoon presentation, energetic audio and local multiplayer options, and there is plenty here for anyone who enjoys sports games with a playful streak.
The roguelite structure will not appeal to everyone, particularly players who prefer traditional seasons, predictable competition and realistic hockey rules. Repeated campaign runs may also become familiar once the main encounters and upgrade combinations have been explored. Yet these are reasonable trade-offs for a game so committed to its own identity. Tape to Tape is not attempting to replace a serious hockey simulation; it is offering a different kind of sporting experience, one where outrageous moments and clever team-building matter just as much as the final score.
Tape to Tape is arcade hockey at its most mischievous, combining satisfying on-ice action with a wonderfully strange roguelite journey that rewards experimentation and embraces chaos. Whether you are assembling a squad of unlikely heroes, trying to survive a ridiculous rival or sharing a frantic match with friends, the game has the potential to deliver memorable sporting moments. It may not be the most realistic hockey experience on the market, but it makes a compelling case for why sometimes the best way to celebrate a sport is to let it get completely out of hand.
