I love driving. I like physical action. Controlling this large, sophisticated machine like an extension of myself. But I also love the poetry and adventure of long drives—the sense of freedom, self-reliance, gradually changing landscapes, and endless possibilities.
Video games are fantastic at capturing these first elements in Gran Turismo and countless other racing games. Sometimes they try to do two things at the same time. Open world driving games like: forza horizon While the Truck Simulator series encapsulates and intensifies the joy of travel, the Truck Simulator series offers a more everyday, realistic interpretation. desert bus It infamously parodied the boredom inherent in the idea of ​​simulating a long drive.
keep drivingAn indie game being developed by YCJY Games in Sweden (sea ​​salt, post void) takes a different approach, aiming to capture both the romance and boredom of long drives while abandoning the part of actually controlling the vehicle. Instead, it borrows from another video game genre about sailing, adventure, and progression: old-school role-playing games about the hero’s journey.
The goal of the game demo currently available is to look vaguely like the America of thousands of road trip movies, where you drive across an unnamed fictional country to a friend’s house for a night of video games. Driving takes 4 days in-game and about 1 to 2 hours in real life. After grabbing your trunk (a Resident Evil-style grid inventory), you select the next stop on the map and hit the road. Then sit back and watch your car burn up the miles as the world scrolls from right to left.
At each leg of your journey, you’ll encounter events that threaten to impede your progress, including slow tractors, potholes, and rain puddles. This threatens to eat up three resources: gasoline, vehicle durability, and driver energy. There’s an abstract turn-based event system where you use skills and items from your glovebox to eliminate threats. oregon trail) is displayed as a row of color-coded icons at the bottom of the screen. There’s a light puzzle game element to these events, as skills like “relax” and items like duct tape target specific icon patterns.
Environmental conditions also affect these events, applying buffs and debuffs. Rain increases gas consumption, and beautiful forests provide inspiration, eliminating the energy costs of some technologies. And you can pick up hitchhikers who come with additional skills but with their own personality. A wandering composer is offended if his skills are not used. A nice young woman fills your trunk with useless junk. At rest stops, you can refuel, shop for items to replenish resources or counter debuffs, or sacrifice time to get a job and earn some much-needed gas money.
Image: YCJY Games
Image: YCJY Games
Image: YCJY Games
Image: YCJY Games
keep driving It evokes deep nostalgia. The setting is the early 2000s. You’ve just turned your teens and bought your first car. Maybe it’s an old 1970s muscle car, or maybe it’s a boxy 1980s sedan that looks like a 200 series Volvo. The car has a CD player spinning garage band indie rock, and you can fill the trunk with Coke bottles, guitars, and crates of beer. The technology is represented by a blurry Polaroid held in a bulldog clip. While driving, sometimes moments of self-reflection come. My back hurts. I need to call my parents. What am I doing now? Multiple choice answers to these questions apply status effects. Some are bad, some are good.
Driving for three days just to play video games with friends is a very specific and strong mood that summons up a rootless time in your life. It reminds me of one hazy, aimless summer, right after my 21st birthday, when I set off in my little red Fiat for a trip to my friends’ houses far away. The pixel art cars, moody scenery and boho hitchhikers are well observed and convey the feel of a hip adult film from the late 90s.
It’s a bit difficult to understand the abstract game mechanics at the moment. Applying Patience (skill) and Gum (item) to navigate tricky surfaces is, at least for me, a bigger mental leap than using spells and swords to defeat monsters. But after a few hours keep driving It perfectly evokes the precarious freedom of driving long distances when you have no money and all the time in the world. It’s a game where you drink coffee, sleep in the backseat, and glue yourself and your car with pizza and duct tape to drive all night. During the 15 to 20 hours the developer committed to completing the finished article; keep driving It’s the perfect ending to your video game adventure.
