Gearbits

About

Gearbits is a single player shooter game with a science fiction theme. It was developed by Quackpond-Games and was released on October 9, 2023. It received overwhelmingly positive reviews from players.

Gearbits is a 3D action game where you pilot a giant robot. Use the mobility granted by your rocket boosters to fight massive swarms of vicious giant insects and face off against enemy pilots. Choose a machine and equip it with a variety of powerful weapons. This is a demo build, that contains the first five mission of the story campaign and gives a taste of what you can expect in the full game. T…

Genres & Tags

Play Modes

Single-Player

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96%

Audience ScoreBased on 399 reviews

story59 positive mentions

stability4 negative mentions

Fun, fast-paced mecha combat with smooth and responsive controls reminiscent of classic Armored Core and Gundam games.
Good variety of mechs and weapons with meaningful loadout customization and replayability through campaign and wave modes.
Engaging gameplay for the price, with solid difficulty balancing and charming story and characters that add context without overwhelming.

Limited mech customization mostly restricted to weapon loadouts, lacking deeper features like body part swapping or color editing.
Some missions feature frustrating design choices such as repetitive escort/defense objectives and difficulty spikes that might require trial and error.
Audio and UI issues like no full volume control, minor bugs, occasional frame drops with many enemies, and missing quality-of-life features such as dialogue skipping.

story
274 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
22%
74%
4%
The story is generally considered straightforward, lighthearted, and reminiscent of classic mecha anime, serving primarily as a functional backdrop to the gameplay. While not particularly deep or groundbreaking, it effectively provides context and motivation for the missions, with characters and narrative arcs that are simple but occasionally charming. Some players found the pacing well-matched to the combat, though others noted the story can feel filler-like or basic, with certain frustration over mission design impacting narrative engagement.
- “Tldr; solid mech game with a fun story (both base game and the DLC) though can have some difficulty spikes that can cause some frustration but never overshadows the fun with the game.”
- “The story is a mix between Muv-Luv and Gundam Zeta with a Starship Troopers setting and is well written.”
- “The story is phenomenal, full of arcs that delve into the multi-front conflict of the war on Ourant and threw players for a loop for every new development.”
- “The story is painfully mediocre and the characters are meh, but that doesn't really matter.”
- “It's not without negatives, naturally, there's an over-reliance on defense missions in the campaign that can be a drag, and the story is kind of forgettable with a villain that fails to stand out despite how much emphasis he gets.”
- “The reception seem to have been that the story is ok, which is pretty much what I was aiming for. An ok story is worse than a bad story, videogames have a tendency to lack in the narrative department, but that’s not an excuse to make a lacy bridge to connect your levels.”
gameplay
88 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
48%
49%
3%
Gameplay is generally praised for being fun, fluid, and satisfying with a good balance of speed and responsiveness reminiscent of classic mech titles like Armored Core and Gundam. The variety of mechs, weapons, and missions offers enjoyable customization and replayability, although some note it is somewhat simple, short, and occasionally marred by minor bugs or missing quality-of-life features. Overall, the gameplay delivers an engaging, arcade-like mech combat experience that appeals to fans of the genre despite not being deeply complex.
- “Outstanding game with a perfect balance of not too slow but not too twitchy gameplay.”
- “Gameplay is somewhere between Earth Defense Force and the older Armored Core games, with a simple but impactful build system and a lot of really fun weapons.”
- “The gameplay is smooth, the visuals are consistent, and while the dialogue is a bit rough in places the story has just enough meat to it to keep you wanting to know what happens next.”
- “The controls are clunky, the gameplay is shallow, mechanics are mildly confusing, enemies lack intelligence and complexity.”
- “The gameplay loop is rather simple, go on a mission (story mission or extra) and attain money.”
- “In actual gameplay, you can only choose between mechs with different stats; this one’s faster, this one’s bulkier, this one’s lock on time is faster, but that’s about it.”
graphics
39 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
38%
54%
8%
Gearbits features intentionally low-poly, retro-inspired graphics reminiscent of early Armored Core and PS1-era visuals, with a charming, straightforward art style and solid mech designs that evoke classic Gundam aesthetics. While its graphics are basic and occasionally inconsistent or rough, they run smoothly even on low-end hardware and contribute to a nostalgic atmosphere appreciated by fans of mech games. Overall, the visuals may not impress modern standards but are competently designed and supported by polished gameplay, making the style a matter of personal taste.
- “Gearbits is a very solid, mostly solo-developed indie mecha game that effectively plays like later PS2 era Armored Core while going with a low poly art style like PSX era Armored Core with mecha designs closer to 0079 Gundam, while mixing in a giant space bug threat similar to Earth Defense Force.”
- “I find the art style appealing and performance is excellent with 300+ fps even with loads of enemies on screen with my R7 5700 and GTX 1080, and it even runs acceptably on my laptop with its basic Celeron N3060 and integrated graphics.”
- “Presentation-wise, the game's graphics are definitely on the low end tech-wise, with everything being fairly polygonal and low-res, but this doesn't really undermine the fact that the art assets are competently designed, with pretty solid mechanical designs in particular carrying the show.”
- “While the graphics are a bit primitive and it can sometimes be hard to tell what killed you in heated fights, it's a fun budget title that doesn't take long to beat and doesn't break the bank.”
- “If it wasn't for the graphics I probably would think this was a game from a major studio.”
music
22 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
36%
50%
14%
The music in the game is generally described as fitting the mood and enhancing the action with a synth/lo-fi indie vibe, though some find it forgettable, generic, or not memorable enough. Sound design and music transitions during missions are praised, but audio options are limited, with some users wishing for a soundtrack release. Overall, the music complements the game’s atmosphere well, despite mixed opinions on its impact.
- “The synth soundtrack gives the impression of an arcade-like experience, especially when you enter the wave survival mode.”
- “Music definitely has that indie feel to it as well, but it's well-tailored to the scenarios, driving the action at just the right moments.”
- “The music is fantastic, the gameplay was stellar, I loved the characters and the art style was really nice as well!”
- “The sound effects sound wonderful, but the awful chiptune music needs to be swapped out.”
- “Talking about sound, it’s time for the music; it’s not even okay, because most of the time I don’t even notice it’s there. It doesn’t push me to destroy my enemies, it doesn’t make me excited because there’s an armada of giant cockroaches closing in. I can't even find anywhere to listen to it outside the game, and I don't recall anything about any song.”
- “As I have said before, bad music at least would have made me remember it. I might have even chosen to go to the menu and turn it off, but it’s not even that. It’s so forgettable; bad is not a correct adjective, but I’ll just call it worse than bad.”
replayability
9 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
33%
34%
33%
The game offers solid replayability through its wave-based survival mode with customizable settings, varied mechs and weapons, and short, replayable missions. Unlockable loadouts, in-game achievements, secrets, and the ability to replay missions with upgraded equipment further enhance its longevity. However, non-skippable dialogue sections may occasionally affect the seamless replay experience.
- “There's also a wave-based survival mode with customizable parameters, which adds to the replayability.”
- “The game has pretty solid replayability, with its wave modes and the general variety in mechs and weapons.”
- “You can also replay missions with all the equipment you've unlocked which makes for nice replayability.”
- “You are able to skip cutscenes but not dialogue sections before and after missions, which can make replayability more tiring.”
- “The game's production values are a bit iffy at times, affecting overall replayability.”
- “Replayability is limited as missions are short, lasting only about 5 to 10 minutes each.”
optimization
6 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
50%
50%
The game generally offers excellent optimization, delivering high frame rates even with many enemies on screen, especially on mid to high-end hardware. However, performance can become laggy on low-end laptops or during intense enemy swarms, which is understandable given it is a solo developer project.
- “I find the art style appealing and performance is excellent with 300+ fps even with loads of enemies on screen with my R7 5700 and GTX 1080, and it even runs acceptably on my laptop with its Celeron N3060 and integrated graphics.”
- “Performance-wise it's generally good but can start to slow down when multiple swarms of enemies are in play, perfectly acceptable considering this is a solo dev project.”
- “Sick game, inspirational performance from a solo dev that clearly has a lot of love for mecha games and the Ace Combat series.”
- “Although my laptop performance isn't really good since my laptop can only handle 2 games and it is still very laggy.”
- “Performance issues reduce the gameplay experience significantly.”
- “The game lacks proper optimization, causing frequent lag even on mid-range systems.”
stability
6 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
33%
67%
The game is generally stable and runs well on PC with minor, non-critical bugs, especially if graphic settings remain unchanged. However, it exhibits significant bugs and instability on Steam Deck and Linux, affecting gameplay and visual models. Overall, the core gameplay is solid, but platform-specific polish is needed.
- “Runs great; if you change graphic settings you can break them, so don't (fixed by opening the game in gaming mode).”
- “Short but sweet, great core gameplay and remarkably bug free.”
- “Game is really fun, but it's super buggy on Steam Deck.”
- “Originally I didn't recommend the game due to lack of Steam Deck support - and it's not just the controls, the game is buggy as hell - but I gave it a chance on my PC and it's a fun game, it needs some polish with some minor non-gamebreaking issues, but overall really fun!”
- “There is a native build for Linux but the models get super buggy.”
humor
5 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
100%
The humor in the game is a mix of unintentional and intentional elements, with enemy mechs being amusingly easy to exploit and customization options described as hilariously bad. The dialogue is praised for its funny writing, though the overall tone of the game’s humor can feel somewhat unclear or inconsistent.
- “The dialogue is very funny.”
- “Would have also been funny to remove upgrade limit once you beat the campaign, allowing you to essentially get a 1 hit p-shooter and godly starter mech, provided you upgraded them beyond normal reason.”
- “The enemy mechs are kind of hilariously easy to fight at long range (so they cannot target you) and you can shoot them willy-nilly with no risk, but that is assuming you actually prepared to fight enemy mechs and brought a long range loadout.”
emotional
5 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
100%
Though the story and characters are straightforward and archetypal, the emotional impact is strengthened by heartfelt character conclusions and a compelling drive to stop the villains. Players, even those not typically fans of mecha, find themselves nostalgically connected and emotionally engaged, enhanced by immersive combat experiences.
- “I am not a big fan of mecha, but by the end Gearbits made me feel like I’m one of those people who grew up watching Gundam on TV, and it’s not a bad feeling.”
- “Your giant metal suit takes damage just from touching enemies.”
- “The story and characters are basic by design, but I did find myself compelled to stop the villains and the conclusions to the protagonists’ arcs were surprisingly heartwarming despite them all being cookiecutter archetypes.”
grinding
4 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
25%
75%
Grinding in the game is generally unnecessary and can feel tedious, especially when switching between control schemes. However, the main campaign can be completed in about five hours without extensive grinding, making it accessible even for players looking to avoid repetitive tasks.
- “You'll need a second life for grinding.”
- “Took about 5 hours to beat the main campaign but I did do some grinding though that's completely unnecessary to be honest.”
- “Switching between hover and flight can get tedious.”
atmosphere
2 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
100%
The game's atmosphere strikes a charming balance by blending a lighter, self-aware story with a genuine sense of investment in its events. While not heavily stylized to emphasize futuristic or outer space themes, it effectively supports the heroic tone of battling invaders, making it engaging enough to encourage replay.
- “Having a lighter story that's not afraid to take itself too seriously while still treating the events of the game as something worth investing in and not just a joke makes a pretty charming impression. I intend to replay this even having 100% completed it because of the atmosphere it gives.”
- “I wouldn't say it's stylized in such a way that it screams the future or outer space, but it suits the general atmosphere of heroically fighting off invaders.”