I finally got a chance to play the new video game released this month. This is the game everyone has been talking about. It was almost instantly hailed as a classic, and it’s one of the most fun games I’ve played in a long time. I’m talking about, of course What is a car?this month from Danish developer Triband.
The game is the sequel What is golf?, an innovative golf game from 2019 originally released on Apple Arcade (which is also where I play the new game). I’ve never played any games other than miniature golf, but I’ve been playing golf video games since I was 7 years old. the original PGA Tour Golf for MS-DOS. I love video game golf and have played many versions. I had the one where Bobcat Goldthwait is the host. My senior year of college was mostly a blur Tiger Woods 2004, with beats from Just Blaze. My wife and I played the last one mario golf for months. Another Switch game I enjoyed was that History of Golf– An RPG where you hit zombies with, for example, golf shots.
What is golf? is a weirder game. The goal is to advance the ball toward the hole. So far so good. But sometimes the pit and the flag move to get in your way. Sometimes your ball is a person or a house. Sometimes you should bowl instead of golf. It’s basically a collection of mini-games where you generally have to progress somethingshot after shot, to the target.
What is a car? accepts the same idea. You drive forward to the finish line. You play in a world full of kicking cars, where you are cheered on by bears. I really don’t understand it. But, man, it’s a panic. Some levels are quite simple. Others are strange. your car is constantly changing. Sometimes your car’s legs are too big, sometimes your car is a hamster wheel, sometimes your car is balanced on office chairs. The levels are getting smarter. I played as a car on a track where I had to reach the finish line as well as moving around the track.
Like any good casual mobile game, it has its fair share of challenges. All you have to do to beat the level is complete it. But if you finish it faster, you can get silver or gold. Many courses have shortcuts that allow you to complete it as quickly as possible. Each level also has a hidden card that… I still don’t know what it does. Maybe nothing.
The game is quite short right now. I beat it in a few days, although it looks like there will be expansion levels. Now I can go back and play the levels I missed or try to finish the levels I like faster. Theoretically there is also an unlimited number of levels. players can make their own boards and upload them to the game. I haven’t tried many of them yet, but I have played some level created by ASMRplanet on YouTube. I didn’t get any shocks from it, but we all have our ASMR preferences (I still love the “virtual haircut”).
“We try to find everyday objects that everyone has some experience with,” Triband creative director Tim Garbos told Inverse. “Everyone knows what a car is and how it’s supposed to work, so it’s very easy to subvert expectations and do something completely different than that. It’s like trying to look at a car and forget how it works and just see it as a weird box and then imagine all sorts of things.”
Developers are like me with golf games. none of their own cars. However, they have created a simple, silly, fun racing game. It’s only available on Apple Arcade for now, but it will eventually come to other platforms as well. It’s more fun than driving.
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