One thing I love about the indie space is the spirit of seeing some success in a specific area, and looking for ways to move in that direction without ripping it off in some way. While the local co-op multiplayer madness was kicked into high gear on the Switch with the release of Overcooked and its sequels, I was pleasantly surprised by Moving Out and a few others that adopted some of the same ideas but certainly went in their own directions. Then in the case of Moving Out 2, I think they even surpassed it. Now with Ready, Steady, Ship we have yet another take, and while it isn’t perfect, my wife and I really enjoyed the challenging action it offers.

Having worked in kitchens, the moving business, as pit crews, and some other activities, this time your challenge will be working in a warehouse. While that may not sound terribly thrilling, I believe more so than most titles in this space that it provides the deepest skill-based challenges in the bunch. While you’ll start out performing simpler tasks, fixing and completing production lines, collecting and sorting boxes, and the like, it won’t take long until you’re working with heavier machinery. The forklifts and cranes you’ll need to operate really step up the skill floor, and while that may be catnip to more experienced gamers, it may be a bit too much for people with less controller experience. The good news is that in general you can get away with one person being the skillful one, while the other moves things around and gets them in place. This means that while it can be demanding, there’s still room for success even if only one player can manage the machinery which can have touchy controls.

What really blew me away was that the single player and co-op campaigns are really quite different. Yes, their stages share many elements, but the nature of the challenges between the two is surprisingly different. The thing is, I’m not entirely sure that’s a good thing if you’re planning to go it solo. I’d say one of the critical actions that doesn’t feel as well-implemented as others is your ability to at least somewhat accurately throw boxes, and unfortunately it’s a cornerstone of your success when playing without a partner. Floor sensors are introduced early in that campaign, and in order to most effectively trigger them you’ll want to throw a box on them. This is unfortunately much harder than it sounds. Holding down the button to find your range works pretty intuitively, but trying to refine your directional aim is a real mess as you’ll turn and move too quickly. This forces you to try to pre-aim as much as you can, so you won’t need to turn, but it would simply be better if this problem was tweaked a bit. Perhaps a trigger button being held down would slow it or something, but this element feels far trickier than intended. About my only other complaint, that happens to span both campaigns, is that there can be both clipping issues and problems with your boxes or other equipment getting trapped somewhere on the geometry, sometimes requiring a stage reset. I understand the desire to focus on accuracy, but when a box gets randomly stuck somewhere you can’t get to (and this is sometimes due to wonky physics) it can be really aggravating.

All said, I’m really happy with how Ready, Steady, Ship helps to properly fill out the local co-op ranks. While the others allow up to 4 players and can be much more casual-friendly as a whole, in this case you’re limited to 2 and the controls can really put players to the test. I do wish the game’s camera and split-screen implementations were just a little better, as visibility can be a problem at times, but on the whole I was surprised how much my wife got into the game, and was up for doing the work to improve her skills in order to be successful. I do wish some minor flaws would get buffed out with a patch or two, and also that it wasn’t so ridiculously hard to unlock any new characters, but on the whole these issues don’t stand in the way of it being a good time for you and a friend… or solo if you don’t mind the upping of the challenge ante that brings with it.