Despite starting life as a Bloodborne parody, Nightmare Kart is one of the best free games you can play right now

 "You must be confused, but try not to think too hard about this," says Herman, the spluttering old man who's about to thrash me in a few laps of familiar-looking racing game Nightmare Kart. "Just go out and win a few races, and it will all be over before you know it."

That's easier said than done. Unlike its chirpy older sibling Mario Kart, there are few rules in Nightmare Kart. If you fancy pulling up beside a fellow racer and blasting them with a shotgun, that's perfectly reasonable – encouraged, in fact – and you best believe those skeletons on the track are going to try and kill you. If all of this sounds familiar, you may know developer LWMedia's Nightmare Kart by another name: Bloodborne Kart, the viral PS1-style demake that had to drop all FromSoftware-adjacent branding when Sony's lawyers caught wind of it. With those changes made, there's nothing here to interest any lawyers – off you go, now – but plenty for speed demons to enjoy.

Going the distance

Have the lawyers left? Great, because this is definitely still Bloodborne Kart. Sure, the legal formalities are out of the way (that's Father Gregory to you) but there's no shaking the deja vu as you tear through the gothic streets of Miralodia. But to write this off as pure parody would be a big disservice to a free game that's bursting with stylish PS1-era aesthetics, over-the-top thrills, and a blaring chiptune soundtrack that goes unfathomably hard. 

Though Nightmare Kart has one foot in soulslike and another in traditional racing games, it won't quite fit your expectations of either genre. The campaign mode, which follows a night-long "hunt"' with a bunch of unsavory characters, is a mix of rubber-burning thrills and violence. During its more conventional levels, you'll race your kart or motorbike through tight cobbled streets, using boosts to overtake your Lovecraftian competitors while avoiding the monsters strewn across each track. 

Here, it's possible to keep your foot on the pedal and win without resorting to violence. Flasks are used for nitrous-style speed buffs, and although they're fairly limited, you can restore them by performing aerial tricks with conveniently-placed stunt ramps. Most maps are fairly simplistic, but narrow tracks and tight turns keep things interesting for technical-minded drivers. Pulling off the perfect drift requires excellent timing and nerves of steel, but if you can drag it out for long enough without crashing into a corner then you'll be rewarded with an extra burst of speed. 

However, playing as a pacifist won't stop your fellow motorists from blasting you to bits. Certain levels are more combat-focused. One stage in the sewers is a team deathmatch on wheels, where opposing racers vie to kill each other with deadly weapons found in power-ups. It's a strange mix of Bloodborne, Mario Kart, and Quake, but the result is undeniably silly fun – in one race I shot from fourth to first place in a race because I used the Threaded Sword's dash attack to overtake two of my rivals and behead a third. 

There are even one-on-one boss battles, in which you burn rubber against some familiar-looking characters. But if you're picturing engine-powered dodge-rolls and dying to agonizing one-shot attacks, let me put your mind at ease: even these bouts are giddily arcade-y. Fighting Father Gregory is a two-stage fight that begins with a manic car chase, complete with falling boulders and daring jumps. When I finally corner him in a dingy graveyard, the teeth – or in this case, the Gatling Gun mounted on Father Gregory's motorbike – come out. I don't know if you've ever tried to fight a trigger-happy werewolf from a speeding go-kart, but yes, it's as awkward as it sounds. 

To make things worse, the track is littered with mounds of grave dirt that stall my kart upon contact, which makes me an easy target. My health bar is much smaller than Father Gregory's, which stretches across the screen, and guns from power-ups only last for a few shots. This means I've got to fly around the course non-stop, scooping up a randomized weapon before drifting around and sinking a few shots into my pursuer. After cycling through shotguns, pistols, and even a Gatling Gun of my own, big Greg finally dies in a fiery blaze and my whistle-stop tour of Miralodia continues.

I won't spoil every detail of the hunt, but Nightmare Kart is fairly short, and you should expect to get an hour or two of silly fun out of it. Considering it's free, that value is hard to argue with. Nightmare Kart stretches so far beyond its punchline that it's hard to think this was ever just a joke, and I can see myself regularly coming back for a few laps. If you find yourself between games, I'd recommend taking Nightmare Kart for a spin – and FromSoftware, take notes: everything is better with go-karts and nitrous.  

Nightmare Kart is out now on PC. To see what other indie gems we've been enjoying this year, head on over to our Indie Spotlight series.