Keep Driving

"The film is about a man driving around in his car listening to pop music." These were reportedly the words that convinced Ryan Gosling that Nicholas Winding Refn should direct Drive when Gosling drove Refn home after what sounds like an awkward first meeting. Driving in a car and listening to music is a very special experience that can be very powerful. Nostalgia and melancholy can wash over you, along with memories of childhood and youth, love, and regret, mixing with anticipation, fear, and hope for the future. Or maybe it's just a respite where all you have to do is stay calm and keep your eyes on the road. Hands on the steering wheel, tones from the speakers blaring, the glint of streetlights on the bonnet, the hypnotic rhythm of the windscreen wipers...

We video game players are a nostalgic bunch. The previous generation of games and consoles have barely been discontinued before we put on our rose-tinted glasses and dream back to a more carefree and simpler time with better games. Keep Driving is one of the most nostalgic gaming experiences I've had, not just because it looks like an old game, but because it takes place in a time I wasn't ready to be nostalgic about yet: the 2000s - has it really been that long?

As a 20-year-old in the early 2000s, you've got your first car and a letter from a friend telling you to come to a music festival on the other side of Sweden, and before long you're driving through the countryside with indie pop blasting from the speakers. You have to slow down as a tractor creeps in front of you. You overtake it only to have to brake for a cow in the road - or a flock of sheep, or you get stopped by the police, or a rainbow distracts you on the horizon. Yes, being on a road trip is challenging. Luckily, along the way you'll also meet a number of hitchhikers you can pick up that can both help you on your journey, but also make it unpredictable.

Keep Driving is a resource management RPG with roguelike elements wrapped in gorgeous pixel art and equally gorgeous indie music. It can perhaps best be described as a mix between The Oregon Trail and Darkest Dungeon, but in a completely different setting, of course. The gameplay loop proceeds more or less as described above. You select the next stop on the map and then pick up speed. Along the way, there is a risk of running into so-called road events, where a kind of turn-based combat system kicks in. There are four different resources these events can affect: petrol, car wear, energy, and money. These are represented by different coloured icons set up in a sequence. Each turn, you can then use different abilities or items to remove one or more icons. Once all icons are removed, you can continue your journey. It's relatively simple, but also very monotonous. It's amusing that the "battles" are tractors and sheep on the road rather than monsters in a cave, but since all events are basically reduced to coloured icons, it doesn't really matter what each one pretends to be. They're the same, and they're not exciting battles. On the contrary, they can get a bit annoying.

Along the way, you stop at different stops. It could be a lonely petrol station or a major city. Depending on the location, you have the opportunity to buy supplies, upgrade your car, or take on jobs to earn some money. Most importantly, there are a variety of hitchhikers to pick up. These either have their own destination they want to go to, or they just want to go out into the world on an adventure. Depending on which routes you follow and which hitchhikers' tasks you take on, there are nine different endings that I could count, each of which takes a couple of hours to reach.

That's pretty good replay value for an indie game, but unfortunately the gameplay itself is too monotonous and boring, and keeping track of the different resources can also be difficult and a bit stressful. However, between each game you can retain upgrades to the car and you can also make the game a little easier by choosing how good a relationship the character has with their parents. If the car breaks down and you run out of money, you can call your parents. There's a certain percentage chance they'll pick up the phone depending on how good your relationship is and how many times you've already called. If they don't pick up, well, the trip is over and the game is lost.

As I said, the game is relatively monotonous and really quite boring in its gameplay loop. The reason I'm giving it a recommendation is because Keep Driving is very much a "vibes" game, and you'll know if you're in tune with that after watching the trailer. The pixel art graphics are gorgeous and the soundtrack features a couple of Swedish indie bands I've never heard of before, but which have been on repeat in my music app ever since.

If, like me, you might shed a little nostalgic tear at the memory of a road trip you took with your mates, then you should definitely check out Keep Driving. It's a golden little gem of a game that is unfortunately, probably, too boring to play if you can't quite "vibe" with it.