I’ve often wondered what it would be like to go on a very long road trip — those trips where you need to take an entire month off work, all responsibilities, and the comfort of home. I would meet new people, explore new terrains, watch sunrises and sunsets, and the stars in clear skies. And maybe… discover myself? It all sounded to me like a wonderful adventure. So I played ‘Keep Driving’— a management and strategy game where I’m just a dude with a car, with some very real-life events thrown at me as I went about my long driving trip. I confronted the horrors of flat tyres, potholes, hitchhikers — the works. In a way, even playing this game helped me discover myself. I discovered that I’m the last kind of person who should be doing any sort of cross-country road trip. I discovered that I’m only the kind of person who can play a videogame about driving for a couple of hours on a weekend. It’s a brilliant videogame. You should try it, too.
So, how does it all start? It’s the summer in the early 2000s. There’s a music festival happening at the end of this month. You don’t have a lot happening in life, and you figured, why not? Why don’t you just go on a long drive across the country? You don’t really need a lot to get started — a functional car, a driving license, some spending money and a couple of snacks would do. A map in front of you, you see there are a lot of different interesting routes you could take in the month ahead. A nice, relaxed trip, you think to yourself. Just you, the car, the long highways, and the wind in your hair.
There’s so much I love about this game. I love the pixel art style. It gives it such a unique and lovable retro look. A large part of the screen is taken up by the car and the roads, which move from left to right, as though you were in a platformer. But the controls are displayed in front of you like a car’s dashboard. There’s an accelerator, a break pedal, the glove box, and a bunch of other fiddly little meters and buttons. They even added a rear-view mirror and the car ornaments as part of the heads-up display! It’s all useful during event encounters and they look so neat!
But I am getting ahead of myself. Look at me rambling about the controls and the display instead of telling you what the game actually does. So you’re just starting a road trip, and it’s completely left to you to chart out the route based on the roads, the timelines, and the amenities provided in the town ahead. A couple of hours of peaceful driving ahead of you — you listen to some incredible indie rock music and lean back in your seat (I found so many new bands through this game!). Suddenly, an agitating, grating noise in the form of a large truck enters the picture. They honk at you and try to overtake your little car. This is an ‘event’. The elements on your dashboard suddenly come into play.
Now, let’s imagine what a truck could do to us. Ram on the side of the car? That’s a hit to the ‘durability status’. In response, I could accelerate to get ahead of the truck. That’s quite a bit of effort — decreases my ‘energy’. I could also use up quite a bit of fuel in the process. All of these stressors and the responses are neatly displayed on my car’s dashboard. In retaliation, I have skills. These skills could help nullify the effects of whatever the truck could throw on me. But using the skills also means that they get ‘used up’. I reach a new town with less fuel, tired, and hungry. I fill up my fuel tank, and grab a banana from the convenience store. And now, I hardly have any money left! ‘Keep Driving’ truly exposes you to the inconveniences of winging it. It forces you to look ahead, strategise, and try to bring in a semblance of self preservation into the reckless road-tripper that you play as in the game. Maybe you proceed next to a town that has an employment exchange. Take up a few tasks from random hitchhikers, and hope to stay moneyed, rested, and happy before the music festival starts. The game has multiple endings — and each of them are very unique and hilarious in their own special way. I’d rather not spoil them!
‘Keep Driving’ is really a deck building board game that camouflages itself into a very effective management simulator. The game can currently be played only on the PC, and is definitely worth a try for a beginner to videogames who love to plan. I can’t wait for a port for the console, and even potentially a mobile version of it.