BuBa Games released the full version of Cartoon Crime on Steam on Tuesday, November 3, 2026. That ended an Early Access period that began on August 26. The open-world crime game costs $2.99 on Windows PC, and two people in Istanbul made it on an engine they wrote themselves in C++ and OpenGL.
That last part is why it went on my list, because a two-person team building its own engine for an open world is taking the long way round. Teams do that when they have one specific thing they want the game to do.
Here the idea is the camera, and it is a good one. You can switch between a third-person view and a top-down view at any time in the same world. That includes the middle of a car chase, with the police on your tail. It puts the whole history of Grand Theft Auto on one key. The 1997 original looked down from above, and the series did not move in behind the car until Grand Theft Auto III in 2001.
Around the camera trick sits a full open-world sandbox. You can follow story missions or wander, drive, recruit bodyguards, walk into shops and other buildings, and take on kickboxing challenges for cash. Wanted levels climb as you cause more trouble, and when you need a break there is bowling, billiards and an arcade. The studio's store page sums up the plan as "giving you things to do and letting you decide what happens next," which suits a game with bowling in it.
You can play it alone or in online co-op, though the store page does not specify how many players can join a session. It has audio and subtitles in 23 languages, which is a lot for a team of two. The hardware ask is modest: Windows 10, 8 GB of RAM and a GeForce 1660 Super at minimum, with 3 GB of storage.
BuBa Games is upfront about AI, and its release says AI tools helped with some pre-generated 2D art, text editing, translation and development support. The team reviews and edits what the tools produce. The store page adds that the game does not generate AI content while you play.
Ten people have reviewed it on Steam so far, all of them positively, which is a small sample and a good start. For the price of a coffee, you will want to try that camera toggle yourself, and Cartoon Crime is on Steam now.
