To say that Roadside Research is a curious little game would be an understatement. Its wacky premise has players control party members as they manage a gas station, with each party member being aliens.
Travelling far across the reaches of the galaxy, you are tasked with observing humans while gathering as much intel as you possibly can, without evoking suspicion. It’s a deceptively simple title that has a ton of bearing on teamwork and inventory management, making it a blast to play through.
We also had the opportunity to speak with the team behind the game, Cybernetic Walrus, and set up a friendly Q&A session.
Roadside Research Preview and Demo First Impressions
Impostors live among us, and quite literally in Cybernetic Walrus’ Roadside Research. It’s a catchy premise that has players controlling up to a party of up to four players, as aliens in disguise, working at a gas station to investigate strange humans.
Foreboding premise aside, Roadside Research has a very relaxed, comical tone and features a ton of goofy additions. Make no mistake though, at its heart is a pretty in-depth management simulator.
I was tasked with managing the gas station, refuelling vehicles with the correct kind of gas and making sure that everything was in order. This was while managing the inventory of the station, which involved setting prices and profit margins.
Naturally, this works better with friends, as one might expect. I really wouldn’t recommend playing this single player – so make sure to bring a buddy or two along for the game.
This is where the game’s intricacies and player-based resource management kicks in.
You will have to coordinate well in order to make it through a successful shift. The core simulator is pretty well built too, offering a decent chunk of specialization, perks (including a skill tree!), with solid but often grindy in-game mechanics.
It’s not perfect though. A few things look rough around the edges here, although there haven’t been any complaints with regards to performance on my end. The game can also be a bit aggressive when it comes to resource management and timings, and doesn’t have an intuitive tutorial just yet.
Much of these can be attributed to growing pains of an early access product though, and should be ironed out over time.
That being said, the game has a ton of depth to go along with it, which should only get better as the beta progresses. The game is still in its early access stage, and requires a bit more polish before being shipped out as a complete package.
Overall, growing pains aside, Roadside Research is shaping up to be a rather fun little party game that should live up to the hype of its silly, goofy premise and is most certainly worth checking out.
A Friendly Q&A Session With the Team
We also had the opportunity to speak to Mike from Cybernetic Walrus, and presented him with a few questions that he answered:
1. I couldn’t help but notice an Among Us mask in the menu. Did the game have an influence on the creation of Roadside Research?
Not really! Roadside Research is a completely different game, but that doesn’t mean we don’t like Among Us.
When we designed the masks, we simply asked everyone in the studio to draw one, and one of the results happened to look like it could have stepped out of Among Us. We kept it in because it made us smile.
2. Creating games is a labor of love, and almost never an easy task. There were no doubt many challenges faced by the team. I would love to hear about some of these experiences.
We approach development in a slightly unique way through something we call the Momentum Framework. The core idea is to validate a game early by quickly creating a teaser and seeing if people are interested before committing full resources.
That gives us direction, but also introduces the challenge of moving from teaser to a polished, playable demo in a very short timeframe.
With Roadside Research, being our first multiplayer project, the complexity jumped dramatically. Networking, synchronization, and keeping the experience smooth for 1–4 players was a big hurdle compared to our previous title Order 13.
Even after having an external QA company and nearly 1,000 beta testers, new issues still popped up. Luckily, our team thrives under pressure—we released three patches in the first week of the demo alone to keep improving the experience. It’s definitely a challenge, but also one of the most rewarding parts of development
3. The release of viral indie 4-player co-op focused games such as PEAK has seen a rise in recent months. Was this the same formula for Roadside Research?
Yes and no. When we began Roadside Research, PEAK hadn’t released yet, but we were already looking closely at the rise of co-op indie hits like Lethal Company and R.E.P.O.
Those games showed us there’s a huge appetite for short-session, co-op experiences with quirky mechanics. We wanted to take that formula and give it our own twist—by blending a tactile simulation loop (running a gas station) with a completely chaotic alien invasion layer. It’s that mix of the familiar and the absurd that makes Roadside Research stand out.
4. As we all know, the video game landscape has been incredibly competitive, especially with regard to indie games in September. Have these challenges affected Roadside Research’s development and/or release schedule?
Not directly. What really dictates our release schedule is funding—making sure we have the resources to keep the studio running and finish the game properly. Of course, we always look at what other titles are coming out and try to position ourselves smartly, but at the end of the day, we have to keep moving forward.
Interestingly, we might be in a position now where other studios are the ones looking at us. With over 250,000 wishlists already, Roadside Research has built strong momentum, and that’s something we didn’t expect this early.
5. Are there any features or additions you plan on adding to the game over time?
Definitely. Our Early Access roadmap already has some fun additions lined up. On the alien side, probing and abducting humans are high on the list—they’ll deepen the alien research loop and create more hilarious chaos for players.
On the gas station side, we’re looking into features like a car wash, more station expansions, and additional gadgets for players to build through the alien tech tree. We want the game to keep surprising people with new layers of weirdness, while still expanding the core shopkeeping loop that holds everything together.
