♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥, this game. A good friend suggested I buy it, she knows I like car games. And I love this game, but that reason little to do with the cars. It's the stories that go along with it, it's literally a roadtrip game through Real America.

Still, things don't make me say "♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥" a lot but... I feel seen here, and it took me while to work out why exactly. Obligatory footnote for that explanation.

So, trigger warning, this game deals with a number of adult topics. So if you're the sort to use "woke" as a pejorative, you're gonna get triggered by this game. And beyond that, there's death, self-harm, drug use, people doing really bad things to other people, and more. If you don't want to explain that stuff to your kids, keep your kids away from it because it's pretty meaty. You'll thank me for it.

Ahem. Now then.

This game presents itself as a racing game out along the major Interstate highways. And you do race, if you want. You may well get into cop chases based on your decisions. These segments are not difficult, if you're moderately competent at driving you'll find them fairly easy. There's an easier mode if you want it, and a harder mode if you need tension. The handling is quite arcadey, and while the available cars drive a bit differently, a little throttle control gets you really far.

All that said, you might also be able to beat it while being 100% law-abiding, never once racing, never once fleeing the cops. I never tried. My right foot is heavy.

Events happen as you go, sometimes advantageous, sometimes not. Random factors may help you make it to your destination, giving you a little gas money or a bit of rest. This is the metagame; there's an ever-spreading event that you have to outrun, so you have to keep moving and you can't go back, so anything that keeps you moving is effective.

The game's graphics are black and white, but this itself is a bit of a metaphor I want to hit later. Taillights flash bright red, super-important things get a splash of colour. The world is simple, stark, the car simplest and starkest of all. Bit of a comic book look with little side panels that show your foot tromping the gas pedal. (Squint just a little and the world looks like completely desatured, basic textures but with a shading filter.)

The racing is really a distraction. Like I said in the intro, it's a roadtrip simulator in Real America. Not the mythological America with appeals to "greatness" and callbacks to 1950's Andy Griifths Mayberry, white-picket-fence suburban fiction, no. Not at all. It's the America with hard-done people who made the best choice from a palette of bad decisions.

Sometimes they're good people stuck in a bad place. Is it worth stealing from some roadtripping suburbanites if you can feed your daughter? And sometimes, no, they really are bad, and they're your friend besides. Justice or loyalty, what's your poison?

The graphics are black and white, but the game isn't, it's very shades of gray. THEY want you to think the world exists in black and white, left and right, commie pinkos and capitalist bootlickers, winners and losers. But you know that's not the case. We are human. We live on a spectrum. We are complex. Drunkards, grifters, punks, a lonely man running a gas station in the middle of the nowhere. A cop who sees the person behind the mythology surrounding you. Greasy politicians. Racial profiling.

The radio keeps you company during your road trip, and DJs who react to your actions. The punk girl, an utter ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥, who's rejected polite society and would mock you in public for a laugh but has a strong sense of justice. The Limbaugh-clone, a scoundrel, a man insufficiently punched, who drapes himself in the garb of a patriot. The abused wife, now divorced, using her show as a means to exorcise herself. The guy who went too far, the Lunatic Who Says the Truth In Amidst His Madness (a madness fuelled by too much cocaine and an Icarus-like fall from grace admtitedly).

And the game asks you a few questions about yourself, or your character, then presents them as snippets for your later contemplation. Answer them honestly if you want, or don't, it's just a game. But there's so much earnest reality here that I felt... seen, like I said. I can't explain it better than that, or I won't. If you know, you know. And if you don't, it's gonna take a bunch of pub chats and beers. But if you answer those questions honestly, the DJs are talking to you, the player.

The characters are... human, and the game is really about the characters. They're fleeting contacts, people you meet briefly on your roadtrip. It can often be bleak, but you can choose to make a difference as you go along. Or not, screw 'em all and take their cash, if you want to be an ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥. Does it matter? It's just a game, right?

And okay, sometimes there's weird little easter eggs, because being constantly, dreadfully earnest can be a drag, and over time the metaplot changes, so it may not be that out of character.

But this game has, in its own way, stirred something in me. It's been a powerful experience.

Now, with that conclusion sorted, I've got some streaming, I've got a discord and a curator and all of this is in my profile. If you want stranger experiences, you'll find more there, and enough words to choke a llama. I'm not likely to stream this game, though. It's been a very personal experience.



* Obligatory footnote: The game asks you questions about your character's motivations, fears, history. Game events and the DJs sometimes bring these up, so they're themes that shape what you experience. Answer those questions honestly, as I did, and they're talking about things are very, very relevant to you. It's clever. I admire that. But I'm not sharing those experiences.