Volleyball is a fun and simple sport that lends itself well to arcade-style games like Volley Pals. Indie developer Les Crafteurs has taken a different approach with Toasterball, a physics-based volleyball game that recently launched on Steam after a period of Early Access. Here, players control toasters who hit the ball by flopping around and launching slices of toast into the air. It's a very silly experience that supports 2-player local co-op.
In Toasterball, players select from more than 10 unique toasters from around the world and then hit the court, either alone or with friends. There are five different courts at present, and the game can be played with normal or custom rules.
The sport here is patterned after volleyball, but it works a little differently. Rather than trying to get the ball to hit the ground on the opponent's side, players must knock down a wall behind the opposing team and then hit the ball through it. The catch is that you don't freely walk around and jump like in a normal volleyball game. Instead, players move by individually controlling the two levers of the toaster. This will cause the device to flop to the side, jump, or even double jump. Each toaster also has a piece of bread that it can fire and catch, the point being to block the ball with the bread slice. It's a chaotic, wacky experience, as you'd expect from a physics-heavy game like this.
The game can be played 1v1, 2v1, or 2v2. Even better, two human players can opt to team up against an AI opponent or team. The game lacks a campaign, but playing through a few individual matches with a friend should make for a short but fun session.
Toasterball sells for $9.99 on Steam. A Switch version will be released later this year.