Set in a world not too different from our own, where people are too lazy to leave their homes for basic things, a warehouse worker must stand up and make sure the masses get their goods.

Ready, Steady, Ship! is a hilarious, fast paced party game from developers Jolly Bits Games, where you must use your wits to solve distribution delays using conveyor belts and other contraptions.

Fun with Friends!

Ready, Steady, Ship! is made to be played co-op however, there is no online mode, so you are forced to have friends. Luckily, I have one in the form of a wife. We are fiercely competitive when it comes to games, so working together added some tension as I mistakenly thought I was the boss.

The general design is simple. There are coloured boxes that must be put into their corresponding trucks. Easy right? There are 30 levels, with each level having 3 stages. The first few levels get you into the swing of things, little tweaks to your machine's here and there, then suddenly new coloured boxes are introduced. You must change the direction of conveyor belts at the drop of a hat, pieces break and fragile packages fall to the floor and then the time runs out.

Mechanical Madness

Very early on you get given the keys to a forklift. As a certified forklift driver myself I can say this was way harder, controlling the thing was like driving on ice, slipping, and sliding around while trying to keep the load secure. This led to some hilarious instances which left us both cackling with laughter. Then there was the crane, this had the opposite effect, it was so frustrating, the laughter would turn to silence. Not only are you bombarded with different mechanics you also are fighting against the clock. My wife and I both really enjoyed figuring out the puzzles of how on earth do we get those last boxes down from up there only to fail because we ran out of time. I would have loved to have a separate time attack mode for those speed runners.

If you don't have a buddy around there is a solo mode. The levels have been redesigned with a solo worker in mind. It removed a lot of the crazy antics, but it seemed to make it a lot easier. The big downside I found was the Solo and Co-op campaigns were separate. Meaning you must play through all the levels again in Solo. I would have loved to be able to jump in and do a few of levels if my wife wasn't around, but not being able to carry on from where we were up to made the task seem daunting.

We didn't finish the game as there are 90 levels, but we had so much fun trying to figure out the puzzles and I had a blast teasing my wife for her forklift driving skills. I can't see myself throwing it on if I'm alone due to the campaigns being separate and the fact there is no online mode, but the next date night we have we decided to put on our steel caps and see if we can master some of the previous levels and get that raise I so desperately deserve.

Thanks to Jolly Bits Games and Untold Tales for providing a review code.

Ready, Steady, Ship! was reviewed on Xbox Series X, but is also available on Nintendo Switch, PC, Playstation 4 & 5 aswell as Xbox One and Series X/S